IFA to review its structures as the 67-year-old organisation aims to attract new people

IFA President Tim Cullinan: 'You can always bring more efficiencies in the way you’re doing your business.' Picture: Finbarr O'Rourke

A review of the Irish Farmers’ Association’s structures will be initiated this year, president Tim Cullinan has told the association’s 67th annual general meeting.

This is in a bid to attract more new people to take on roles in the IFA, Mr Cullinan said.

“We must have an efficient structure that makes the best use of the time officers give to our association,” he said. “We cannot be afraid of change.”

When asked by the Irish Examiner to elaborate on what this review will entail, Mr Cullinan said “our association has been around now since 1955” and that it has “seen in the last two years the way we had to adapt like everybody else using technology and bringing change about”.

“Any association that’s around that long, it’s important we go back and look at our structures, see how we’re doing our business, become more efficient, use more technology into the future and get us in a better place for the next 20, 30 years,” he said.

“You can always bring more efficiencies in the way you’re doing your business.

“Our members are busy people and when we bring our officers together we want to make the best use of their time.

“We have 74,000 voting members in our organisation, and we want to protect that.”

He said that the stage of progress the review is currently at is that “we’ve made the decision”.

“For now, we have to sit down and develop the plan around what structures we are going to look at, I can’t give detail today because this is evolving.” 

He said in the coming weeks, he and his officers will be “expanding” on the matter.

Mr Cullinan acknowledged that it was “positive” to see the association return to financial surplus in 2021, with the latest accounts to March 31, 2021 showing that the association recorded an operational surplus of €1,790,140.

“This wasn’t achieved easily. We have made huge changes in our association over the past two years,” he said.

“We have added a number of new faces to our staff team. They have brought vibrancy and new thinking to the association. Our democratic structure is the bedrock of our association.”

Barriers to young people entering the industry

Caroline Farrell, a new member of the rules and privileges committee having previously been the association’s farm family committee chairwoman, said that while this new role is a “complete change in direction”, there’s no harm “to have a woman on a committee”.

“I’m the only woman on this particular committee for now,” she said.

“I was part of the diversity committee that was set up and that’s an ongoing project, in fairness we would have hoped to have it further down the line and rule changes and whatever.

“Hopefully it will be revisited and changes will be made to encourage diversity within the organisation.” She said a “lot of work” will have to be done to get new members into the IFA across the country.

“We’ll do our best to encourage more young enthusiastic men and women into the organisation and into the profession.” 

However, between input costs along with concerns related to CAP and environmental policy, there are “still a lot of barriers in our way” to attracting entrants.

“Hopefully people will stay working in it and it is a nice life when things are going well and you’re making money,” Ms Farrell said.

“But there is an awful lot of stress for a lot of people.”