World Ploughing Championship in Russia to be cancelled
The event was scheduled to take place in St. Petersburg on August 13 and 14 following a three-year gap because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 67th World Ploughing Championship, which is due to take place in Russia later this year, is likely to be cancelled, the understands.
The event was initially scheduled to take place in St Petersburg on August 13 and 14 following a three-year gap because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It last took place in Minnesota, USA, in 2019, and is set to return to Ireland in 2023.
The World Championships were planned to take place in Ireland in 2021 to coincide with the National Ploughing Association's 90th anniversary. General secretary of the World Ploughing Organisation Anna Marie McHugh told the that the cancellation decision for the 2022 event will be finalised formally on Thursday night.
"If anything, we're ahead of the curve, insofar as pre the Ukrainian invasion, we already had emergency talks at world ploughing level, and we had scheduled a full board meeting to review the status of the event and since the invasion, the morning of the invasion, we rescheduled that meeting for Thursday of this week to make a decision,” Ms McHugh said.
"So the decision has to be finalised formally, and that will be done [on Thursday] night. While we initiated our process of cancellation from the beginning of last week, the actual formal cancellation will be taking place [on Thursday] night.”
Ms McHugh said that based on her correspondence "from the board from 30 countries", there was "no question about the cancellation". "I would be very confident that will be the decision," she said.
"Our Russian colleagues have accepted the event can't go ahead. We sympathise massively with the Ukrainian situation," she added.
She also said: “We have Russian colleagues who are going through an atrocious situation right now too, they’ve worked so hard and for so many years to bring an event like this to Russia. They said themselves it can’t happen, but they’re the ordinary farming community.”
A Fianna Fáil senator this week also called for the cancellation of the event “given the indefensible and increasingly aggressive military invasion of Ukraine by Russia”.
“People are disgusted at the actions of Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and unhinged dictator, and the Russian Government,” Timmy Dooley said.
"I have been in contact with the farming community across Ireland and they are adamant that the World Ploughing Championships cannot be associated with the aggression and terror of the Russian State.”
Meanwhile, Mr Dooley's party colleague, Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, is attending an informal meeting of EU agriculture ministers on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the potential consequences of the conflict for the European agri-food sector.
Mr McConalogue said the Irish Government "has been clear in its outright condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine".
"We are at the forefront of efforts across the UN to bring an end to this conflict and to hold Russia accountable, and we are fully supportive of EU sanctions on Russia," he added.
