‘Massive pressures on farmers right now’

The President of the ICMSA, Denis Drennan, has called on the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine to speedily convene a summit of leaders and experts from right across all sectors of farming.

The ICMSA President said the situation had now moved past “just” falling incomes with confidence and morale throughout all sectors collapsing. Mr Drennan said that unless the right questions were being asked and the right context sought for answers then we had “no chance” of restoring a degree of stability and confidence in the sector that still was the economic mainstay of most of the State outside the cities and largest towns.

“Following the massive reduction in dairy farmer incomes in 2023, we are likely to see further reductions this year as weather conditions drive up costs and reduce milk volumes. Milk prices have not risen to the levels required to offset those additional costs, input costs have not fallen in line with output prices, and the growth in regulation and the uncertainty – particularly on the Nitrates Derogation - has completely undermined confidence in the sector and halted investment on farms.

“Obviously, we’ll be accused of special pleading on behalf of our farmer members, but we’d just tell those commentators they can go to any businesses in rural Ireland – whether directly or indirectly dependent on our sairy sector - and they’ll be told the exact same thing: confidence and investment are collapsing. There are massive pressures on farmers right now and it’s the culmination of almost two years of falling prices compounded by stubbornly high input costs. It’s well past the time for the minister and the wider industry to ‘stand up’ and start supporting farmers and alleviating - where possible - the ‘tidal wave’ of pressures and stresses that are engulfing farmers at present,” said Mr Drennan.

“We urgently need a whole sector summit or ‘sit-down’ that will plot a way forward together out of the ‘blind alley’ into which we have been led. The minister needs to take the lead on this and call the industry together immediately,” he concluded.