Elaine Houlihan: By any metric, farming is an industry in crisis

"We need a new way of doing things. We need to stop hearing ‘this is how it was always done'."

Elaine Houlihan, president of Macra.

In Macra’s pre-budget submission, we placed considerable importance on the introduction of a pilot scheme to facilitate the transfer of land management from the older to the younger generation; we have looked for a scheme that will benefit 1,000 people.

Perhaps this is better expressed as 0.019% of the Irish population that would benefit from such a scheme. With such a small number, should we care? Does it matter to any of us (outside the 1,000)?