Who protects the farming sector?
This is when EU consumers are spending only 15% of their disposable income on food - of which the farmer gets only 1%.
Food prices have actually fallen in the last year, by around 0.4%. House prices have multiplied by at least 20 in the past 20 years. What we farmers get for our produce has remained the same.
At the moment, we also get less than €1 out of every €100 of European taxpayers’ money.
Surely, untraceable food imports should be a bigger worry to Irish consumers. It is also a major health worry for the farming community, not to mention the health of our animals.
With current CSO figures showing farming income 33% behind in real terms, wouldn’t Eddie Hobbs be better employed focusing on this issue? He also seems to forget that the minimum wage and benchmarking are inventions to protect other sectors’ incomes.
Why is this? Is it not the reason for high prices? We farmers are getting so little for our produce because our leaders haven’t got an income protection policy for us just when they should be showing vision and pursuing this issue for farmers.
Michael Flynn
Rathgomack
Co Waterford
