Kieran Coughlan: Farmers are sick to their back teeth of layering regulations
The problem farmers now face is that intensification and scale no longer serve the purpose of increasing margins where land supply, land cost, and regulations create limiting factors, writes rural accountant Kieran Coughlan.
The result of the recent referendums should mark as a warning to the main political parties ahead of the forthcoming local, european and general elections. Farmers are sick to their back teeth of the layering up of regulations over many years but at what seems like an accelerating rate over recent years and there is a distinct possibility that this may play out when it comes to the casting of votes.
Be it at national or EU level, paying lip service to farmers and introducing ‘schemes’ doesn’t cut it. Promising to reduce regulations doesn’t cut it either when farmers were previously promised that more than a decade ago and the contrary has happened.
