The Ploughing ‘a celebration that rural Ireland has survived’ a challenging few years
'It’s great to see people being able to get around, the conditions are ideal and it’s nice to be back after the absence.'
After a hiatus that no one could have seen coming back in 2019, hundreds of thousands of people are flocking this week to the “celebration that rural Ireland survived” the last couple of years.
The National Ploughing Championships kicked off in Ratheniska, Co Laois this morning, with punters eagerly flooding the over 700 acres worth of trade stands, exhibitions, demos and, of course, the ploughing contests themselves.
Located right in the thick of the action is Pat McCormack, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, who has described the event as “the rural festival”, and a culmination of the various agricultural shows that returned this year right across the country, as we come “towards the end of the working calendar year” in the sector.
“It’s great to see people being able to get around, the conditions are ideal and it’s nice to be back after the absence,” Mr McCormack told the Irish Examiner.
“There were huge challenges during that period; certainly when we were all here in 2019, we never thought we were going to miss two years of the Ploughing and be in isolation over that time.
“I suppose it highlights maybe the advantages of farming in that we were easily able to isolate and to work away as near to normal as we possibly could; albeit if you were someone that went to the church, the pub, and the match, you missed out on all three for a long period of time.
“There was huge isolation; but we’re coming together now and it’s kind of a celebration that rural Ireland has survived the last three years, over the next couple of days.” Mr McCormack expects much of his discussions with the public this week to focus around the sector trying to meet its climate targets and what that will mean for farmers, along with the costs of inputs and the energy crisis.
Changes to nitrates rules and markets for dairy and beef are also high priority for engagement on with the ICMSA president, along with “the right to farm”.
“What was signposted in 2019 is certainly here now - and that’s huge change that’s required to meet our climatic targets,” he said.
“There’s going to have to be change in practice, but equally we need to acknowledge what we do as regards sequestration.” Mr McCormack said that comparing the landscape in 2019 to now, “one thing that would disappoint you in particular is in the last six months, we’ve moved to being the villain and actually, we are part of the solution when it comes to climate rather than anything else”.
“You roll back to the start of Covid, the thing that was scarce in the shop was food, because people were panicking and availability of food is a huge issue out there,” he said.
“We’ve a growing population and we need to protect what we have, and that’s a great industry whether it’s beef or dairy, tillage, we can feed a significant part of the world in an environmentally friendly way as regards food production.
“We’ve been in a state of growth in the build up to and post-2015 and hopefully some of that momentum can be maintained as we move forward, but certainly there’s challenges in the years ahead.
“But if you look back, there were always challenges.” A few tents down, Billy Kelleher, Fianna Fáil MEP said he this is one of a few agricultural shows he has gotten around to this year.
He said it has been “great to see people out and meeting”.
“The National Ploughing Championships, it’s part and parcel of rural life, part of the rural fabric,” he told the .
300,000 people are expected to turn out to Ratheniska over the course of the three days; with much joy and relief to be shared.
However, “there’s an air of uncertainty out there” amongst the crowds.
“The war is in the back of people’s minds, that has undermined confidence to a certain extent,” Mr Kelleher said.
“They’re resilient people, but they do feel under pressure and certainly from a Government perspective we have to be conscious of that and policies have to be put in place to ensure that fabric is maintained.” He said that energy costs “are going to be the big pressure point for the next number of months”, and he thinks that banks “will have to play a role in terms of access to cheap credit for working capital”, so that farmers “can pay those exorbitant bills and work through over a period of time”.
“Certainly Government will have to come in and help rural families [with the cost of living], the budget will have to be very conscious of the fact that people are under significant financial pressure.” The National Ploughing Championships, he hopes, will remain a constant in people’s lives for many more years to come; but he added that in the near future, there are “going to be changes in how we live, how we farm, how we build our houses, how we transport ourselves”.
“As a country, we’re going to have to address a lot of those issues. I’d like to see more emphasis particularly from Government in policy terms around anaerobic digestion, biomass, other areas where there’s opportunities for rural Ireland to actually make a living out of renewable energy sources.
“I think that’s a space where Ireland has huge opportunity.”
