Ploughing event - Farming in limelight

WITH a bumper harvest saved, farmers will converge on Athy, Co Kildare, this week for the National Ploughing Championships, a three-day event billed as the “showcase of Irish agriculture and rural industry”.

Having been cast as the Cinderella of Irish industry, farming is once again the heartbeat of the food industry and the engine room of the homegrown economy.

From small beginnings 80 years ago, the event has grown to “possibly the biggest outdoor exhibition and agricultural trade show in Europe”. However, given the depth of the economic downturn and the wildly swinging pendulum of a highly volatile Europe, it remains to be seen how this will impact on the extraordinary occasion which last year drew 180,000 people and 1,000 exhibitors ranging from machinery to fashion.