The new Farmers' Alliance plan to run election candidates

Spokesperson for the newly formed political party Farmers' Alliance Helen O'Sullivan on her farm in Droumsullivan, Bantry, Co Cork. Picture: Noel Sweeney

Sick of being tarnished as “environmental terrorists”, a suckler and drystock farmer based in West Cork has announced her intention to run for a new farmer-led political party in upcoming elections.

The Farmers’ Alliance organisation was launched in April this year. 

Members met recently to “outline the main objectives their organisation hope to achieve”, centred around “fighting on behalf of everyone not just the farmer”.

Farmers’ Alliance said that “the feedback from the people is to form a political party”.

On social media, the group said it had taken this information on board and would be forming a political party as a result. 

"We already have a number of candidates lined up but are looking for more like-minded people like ourselves,” it stated.

Yet to formally pen a manifesto, Farmers’ Alliance has outlined its priorities to include: the freedom to farm; food security; protect land, environment and property rights; challenge EU policy; ensure primary producer gets a fair share of the retail price; freedom of expression/speech; challenge disinformation and media bias; representing communities looking for fair representation, fair income, and fair cost of living.

Very worried

Helen O'Sullivan, who was involved with the Beef Plan Movement in 2019 and recently graduated from University College Cork with a HDip in Sustainability in Enterprise, told the Irish Examiner she intends to run for the Farmers' Alliance party in upcoming elections. 

Ms O’Sullivan, who farms just under 200 acres in West Cork, said that she is “very worried” about “everything being thrown at” farmers.

“The price of cattle are gone way back again, I’m in the suckler and beef section and prices are gone way back, the input costs are spiralling,” Ms O’Sullivan said.

People are worried because the cost of everything is just coming together, the cost of fertiliser throughout the year was crazy as well, and a lot of people are wondering can they keep going the way they are.

“Then, on top of that, we’ve the whole thing being thrown at us that we’re to be blamed for climate change, which is a huge thing.

“We’re being labelled as environmental terrorists, which I think is totally wrong.” 

Not feeling represented

She said that many farmers have not felt represented by other farm organisations along with political parties.

“A lot of the farmers I’ve spoken to on the ground haven’t felt represented and I think that’s why we Farmers' Alliance have developed, the farm organisation and now forming a political party as well because we feel there are an awful lot of decisions being made at the table and there’s no one there to represent us,” Ms O’Sullivan explained.

“We now feel we have to get ourselves out there, get candidates in every constituency, and get them elected and therefore we will have representation at the table then.” 

The party hopes to represent “not just the farmers, but the people of rural Ireland”, including those in fishing who "are in the same boat as ourselves with their livelihoods". 

“Everybody in rural communities, and we wouldn’t stop there. We’d like to engage with urban people as well because we feel that they have been given a lot of misinformation about us.

[We want] to get an opportunity to bridge that gap that is being driven between us due to misinformation.

“What do we all have in common let you be from urban or rural? We all eat food. Where does food come from? Farmers. I think that’s very important.” 

Fight for their rights

She said farmers in Ireland want to fight for their “right to farm, food security, to be able to protect our land and environment”.

She said Farmers’ Alliance wants to “help communities who are looking for fair representation, fair income, and a fair cost of living, which in this day and age shouldn’t be a big ask”.

She said Farmers’ Alliance is “currently developing our policies”, and “we want to take our time with those so we get it right”.

Ms O’Sullivan attended the launch meeting of the Farmers’ Alliance organisation in Athlone in April, which was addressed by the leader of the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), a Dutch farmers’ party which had shock political success this year, Caroline van der Plas.

Ms O’Sullivan said she subsequently joined the Farmers’ Alliance organisation, “and we decided that listening to the feedback from people, the way to go here is a political party”.

Clean slate

For upcoming elections, so far, “roughly we have about 10 or 12 candidates, and we hope to run one person in every constituency,” Ms O’Sullivan explained.

“We originally approached some of the independent TDs, and they didn’t seem that interested to be honest. We’ve decided to do this ourselves.” 

Many farmers have felt the need “to go with a clean slate and not getting other politicians or ex-politicians, not joining up because a lot of people feel maybe those TDs might have voted on something with Government and they wouldn’t be happy with that”.

“I know this is going to be very daunting, it’s going to be a mammoth task there is no doubt about it,” Ms O’Sullivan said.

“We need everyone to come together now, we’re asking everyone to come out and support this.

“If we want change, we all have to do it together from the grassroots up.”