The ongoing disconnect being felt by farm families nationally in relation to the activities of the Department of Agriculture is widening, in my opinion.
Serious questions need to be asked nationally about who is advising agriculture ministers and how is the Department of Agriculture arriving at advice being offered?
I could reference multiple areas of concern I have across agriculture sectors that would leave one, mentally spinning.
This raises questions – who is coming up with policy decisions, and how are they being proactively managed? Rather than free-wheeling problems across the sector, let me concentrate on just three.
Issues within agriculture
Forestry: The planning and felling situation in national forestry activity is abysmal in terms of this government target programme.
Rather than doubling this sector’s activity in the life of this government, we have, in fact, halved it. We have missed and will continue to miss all targets to: (a) increase and sustain domestic timber production needed for our construction sectors; (b) our resultant failure to advance forestry targets agreed with Brussels will result in increased future environmental fines and reduced carbon offset claims for new sequestration; (c) the new Forestry Programme has taken too long and is glacial in incentivising new private forestry plantations; (d) the climate action policy, which has targeted fuel levies, traffic congestion, nitrogen use, etc., has completely bypassed the forestry sector.
Straw incorporation debacle: The recent flip-flop by Minister Charlie McConalogue to target a scheme where farmers had already invested in crop rotation with the expressed intention of returning nutrients to the soil, forcing them to invest further in contractor baling and storage as cutting was underway, shows a complete lack of advanced planning.
The growing season has been ‘back’ for weeks from early in the year; every farmer knows this. Surely the department boffins in Teagasc, who spend so much taxpayers’ money annually advising on crop and soil health, could have updated the minister sooner on possible winter farm fodder reserves?
How did the minister think farmers claiming for a chop-and-nutrient scheme benefiting tillage planting and soil microbial activity could suddenly disengage and park borrowed monies to become brokers for future possible cattle farm fodder shortages?
Veterinary medicines dispensing: As part of the EU Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed, and Fertilisers Regulation Act, the minister is considering a segue to possible powers by a future statutory instrument that can remove the requirement for a vet to have sight of an infected animal or first-hand knowledge of the farm operation to which they belong.
Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Dublin
This, in the main, is to dispense vaccines or wormer products for all farm animal sectors. The proposal would allow a farmer to purchase such veterinary products from a local farm shop or wholesaler based on their description of animals’ symptoms to an in-house veterinary resource.
There would be no requirement for the in-house veterinary resource to have any knowledge or sight of the farm, the affected farm animal, or the accuracy of the farmer’s description of the symptoms presenting.
This introduction, if approved by the minister, will reduce the care of such animals to the level of a farmer’s disease opinion. It will likely also increase the misdiagnosis of disease and the subsequent treatment of sick animals, creating welfare issues.
It will also reduce the revenue and viability of country vet practices, which are needed for ‘out-of-hours’ farm animal emergency call-outs. Most disturbingly, it will likely increase the resistance of parasitic and viral infections through mis-prescribing, with all of those attendant dangers.
Who is advising agriculture ministers?
The question for all of the above is – who is supposed to be at the helm of these activities, giving the best advice to the ministers of the day?
I believe there are major shortcomings within the Department of Agriculture, and there is wide anecdotal evidence to support that belief.
With the rise in foreign direct investment and tax revenue over the past two decades, the historic position of agriculture as one of Ireland’s key economic sectors has diminished in the minds of cabinet ministers and been pushed off the table – this has resulted in a loss of focus on how this sector is being proactively managed in my opinion.
I don’t believe the sector is being proactively managed. I believe department seniors drafting policy have become too subservient to EU policy and decision-making, which often ignores our unique national and sectoral interests.
The continuing deaf ear being presented by government and allied departments to our agricultural sector and the failure to proactively plan at department level will have further negative consequences for our position as a ‘pristine’ EU food-producing nation.
The first place to address this is with the relevant department leaders charged with overseeing this vital national economic sector.
Ministers McConalogue, Martin Heyden and Pippa Hackett will soon leave their respective positions in this Dáil regardless of their perceived performance to respective positions.
The happy outcome for the permanent civil service custodians of the Irish agricultural sector is that they remain economically insulated and unencumbered from the headwinds their oversight of the sector is creating.
From Matt Shanahan, independent TD, Waterford.
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