Tillage farmers losses put at €4m because of wet harvest
The losses of €3m on grain and €1m on straw were calculated by the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) after it carried out a survey, working closely with Teagasc and the grain trade.
Topping the table of affected growers was Cork (125), followed by Donegal (40), Clare-Galway (30), and Kerry (30).
The IFA said that farmers who have experienced these losses are in a very precarious situation.
They had not encountered such conditions since the mid-1980s, or, for younger farmers, never in their lifetime.
It said it is seeking an aid package for all the affected growers “given the dire financial situation many farm families find themselves in through no fault of their own”.
Farmers seeking the aid package yesterday protested outside the Dáil, coinciding with a debate in the House on a Fianna Fáil private member’s motion on the issue.
IFA president Joe Healy said Agriculture Minister Michael Creed cannot turn his back on tillage farmers, who are facing severe financial difficulties arising from the crop losses.
However, Mr Creed recently said he acknowledged and accepted that difficulties have been experienced by the farming community, not least by tillage growers.
Last autumn, he convened a meeting of stakeholders to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the sector and many useful interventions were identified.
While there was no specific funding available for losses due to poor weather conditions, he had repeatedly called at the Agriculture Council for markets to be kept under ongoing review and had stressed that they should be ready to deploy support measures if the circumstances require it.
He said minister of state for food, forestry, and horticulture Andrew Doyle followed this up at the October Council with a specific request that market support efforts be extended to the cereals sector. Mr Creed told the IFA annual general meeting this week that, through the provision of national funding, he was making the low-cost loan facility available to the tillage and horticulture sector as they were not included in the European Support Package.
“Additionally, I will shortly be rolling out a dedicated investment support package for the sector under TAMS,” he said.
Mr Creed said his department will continue to engage, focusing particularly in the area of value added such as increased use of native grains in distilling and craft beers.
It will evaluate further measures for the sector’s long-term sustainability.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, said that, despite calls for a compensation fund to assist tillage farmers, the Government had stood back and refused to move on the issue.
“Pointing tillage farmers towards the new low-cost agri-fund loan scheme is not a policy solution,” he said, claiming the Department of Agriculture has the money to establish a crisis fund. There was an €86m underspend in the Department of Agriculture’s 2016 budget, on top of a large underspend arising from Rural Development Programme schemes, said Mr McConalogue.
He said specialised compensation schemes have been set up in the past — the aid scheme for potato and vegetable crops damaged by frost was introduced in 2010 and sets a precedent. On the broader outlook, IFA Grain Committee chairman Liam Dunne said that, with high global stocks, the outlook for tillage farming remains very challenging in 2017.
