Farmers plan tractorcade protest

FARMERS will vent their growing anger over collapsing incomes by bringing thousands of tractors on to the streets of 28 towns countrywide next Monday.

The tractorcades are being organised by the Irish Farmers’ Association to highlight government cuts and what it says is the devastating impact that falling incomes is having on farm families and the rural economy.

IFA President Padraig Walshe, announcing the protests, said farm incomes are expected to fall by 25% in 2009 as a result of poor farm market prices for all commodities, a disastrous and costly wet summer and repeated draconian government cuts on vital farm schemes.