Mother gets a bad break and I feel like taking the tractor to Dublin

ALL politics is local, they say. And for me, the farmers’ protest of 2003 will always be about my mother breaking four ribs in the cause of Irish agriculture.

Travelling over the bumpy road to Ballinasloe's Portiuncula Hospital last Sunday morning, trying to get her to hospital with the minimum of pain, I did not have time to reflect on the irony of it. My mother had received, rather than struck, a blow for Irish farming. But in its own way the incident illustrated what last week's tractor protest was all about.

Mrs Mullen was injured after she went out in the rain to do some chores before Mass. A heifer pushed her against the bar of a cattle-crush, breaking her poor bones, and all our Sunday plans were shelved. Thankfully she is recovering well, but my own share of the family workload will rise dramatically over the weekends to come. All Dublin engagements are hereby cancelled. The accident reminded me of the many dangers farmers face, over long hours and in wet weather, to make a modest income. Or, as in my parents' case, to supplement an income.

It gave me a reason, too, to sniff at the many critics of Irish farming whose banal thoughts clogged our airwaves and newspaper columns all last week. One letter-writer claimed the tractor protest lacked authenticity because there wasn't "a single 4WD, Merc, BMW or flashy horsebox in sight."

Others objected in a more delicate fashion, saying that if farmers couldn't make a living out of farming they should cut their losses and switch their efforts to other areas. And, inevitably, there was sneering at some of the expensive tractors on display.

Farm machinery is costly of course, but that is exactly the point. Expensive equipment doesn't necessarily mean large profits, and neither does high turnover.

Even the Minister for Agriculture, Joe Walsh, made this mistake when he suggested the average farm income was about 45,000. According to the Central Statistics Office the figure for last year was 15,000, or 55% of the average industrial wage. One commentator suggests that while one-third of the 100,000 farmers are doing well, one-third are struggling and one-third are on or below the poverty line.

But while farmers came in for much criticism during the week, they appeared to win the public relations battle as time went on. On Tuesday, John Dillon was accused by an RTE journalist of an ego trip, but by Friday the IFA president had grown in stature and credibility as farmers united behind him.

This was partly because farmers had found that vital feel-good factor which makes all media campaigns successful. Firstly, the 'tractorcade' was well managed, and caused a minimum of disruption. Secondly, there was noise, colour and comment as the tractors went from town to town. It was a brilliant media story. Thirdly, journalists many of them from the country themselves relished the stage-by-stage nature of the event. It was the nearest we got to the Tour de France since Stephen Roche did the business back in 1987. Instead of the Champs Élysee last Friday, we had Merrion Square. The timing of it all was quite brilliant.

But much more significant was the deep-down realisation that the farmers' cause was just. The figures speak for themselves: since 1995 cattle prices have fallen by 22%, milk prices are down 9%, pig prices down 10% and the price of grain down 30%. And while all this has been happening, the price of food has gone up: consumers are paying 38% more for food since CAP reform began in 1992.

Pointing out the problem is one thing. But solving it won't be so easy.

Irish farming appears to be on life-support from direct subsidies and a range of other measures to prevent the price of farm produce from dropping even further. But will this continue in the future, as new EU members compete for farm support and pressure comes from without the EU to lift barriers to trade?

According to one champion of rural development, retired UCD Professor Seamas Caulfield, this may be the wrong question. He argues that we need a more positive attitude to the situation of Irish farming, and that we should see it less as a production industry, and more of a service industry.

"Of course, we need locally-produced food that is high-quality and good value. But we should also see farming in the context of the original European Community plan to preserve rural environments. In this way, farmers become the front-line caretakers of the rural environment, and the cheque in the post is no more artificial than the cheque received by a journalist, teacher or other public servant. It is money in exchange for value given."

Caulfield sees the farmers' problems as part of a wider set of challenges facing rural Ireland. He points out that 1,250,000 people live in 'bailtí fearainn,' or dispersed villages, and that only about 30% of these are farmers and their families. Many others are children of a previous generation encouraged to seek off-farm employment.

Caulfield's desire to preserve this way of life, including its important farming component, has caused him to clash with An Taisce and other activists trying to prevent one-off housing in rural areas.

He is particularly impatient with the 'urban myth' that 18,000 one-off houses a year are being built by urban dwellers moving into rural areas.

"According to population forecasts, the next ten years will see the average number of people per household fall from 3 to 2.5. This reflects the massive reduction in family size and the fact that young people now want to settle down in houses of their own, rather than remain living with their parents. An extra 100,000 houses would be needed even if the population only stayed stable."

"The problem is that some people who rightly want to protect our heritage, which is about the past, end up ignoring our culture the way our people live which is about the present. An Taisce wants to force the building of nucleated settlements, clusters of houses, and town dwellings. But in rural Ireland we have a 5,500 year-old tradition of dispersed housing, where people might live a mile or two from the church or a pub, but they are as near to the centre of the village as anyone else, because there is no centre."

As an example of the right attitude Caulfield cites Co Leitrim where, thanks to in-migration of people in recent years and a consequent rise in birth rates, they have halted patterns of decline. Figures for 2002 show that for the first time in 15 years, births will exceed deaths in the county. He would like to see the same trend in north Mayo, where in 38 out of the 41 electoral divisions north of the line between Newport and Killala, the population is in decline.

Fortunately for our country-dwellers, the recently-published National Spatial Strategy has got the point. In areas suffering decline, dispersed housing will not be restricted to local farmers or people working locally.

"In general, any demand for permanent residential development in these areas should be accommodated as it arises," the strategy provides.

The challenge for Caulfield and others like him is to get this thinking incorporated into county development plans in the teeth of opposition from An Taisce and misguided conservationists. Because what has to be conserved, first and foremost, is people's way of life. A beautiful landscape is no good if it is a dead one.