THE SHEAR REALITY

The first half of 2018 has witnessed some tough challenges across the landscape of Irish agriculture, ranging from poor weather conditions at the beginning of the year to input prices and the continuing pressures imposed by Brexit. While these challenges have been sector-wide and across all ages, the young farmer in particular stands to be affected by certain issues such as proposed cuts to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and farm succession. “While there are challenges such as, sometimes, access to land, access to credit for young farmers, those that can get over those challenges certainly can make a very good living from agriculture if they have the mindset, the enthusiasm and I suppose the infrastructure around them to help them achieve that,” says Derrie Dillon, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Manager with voluntary rural youth organisation Macra na Feirme. “There is a lot of opportunity on the horizon and there’s a lot of change in Irish agriculture. Young farmers who are eager and willing to get involved in agriculture can certainly reap the rewards.” Young farmers may be eager and willing, but they still need land on which to farm. One of the major challenges related to access to land are the issues surrounding farm succession. Dillon notes that the Irish don’t have a tendency to discuss these matters in a timely manner, and this delay can cause friction when the young farmer wants to move on with their career. “It’s something that we’re not great at in an Irish context, for planning for it or discussing it at farm level,” he believes. “While that’s a generality, it’s the case that we’re not great at having the plan around and having the discussion at an early stage.” There are other problems too. A significant question often raised revolves around the viability of some family farms in Ireland in terms of income and supporting more than one farmer. In recent years, farming families have found themselves in a position where parents are not of retiring age while the next generation is prepared to set up their own operation. “Yet, the farm may not be big enough to support two income units, two family units. So that presents a challenge,” Dillon notes, highlighting the fact that, due to challenges in the sector, even if

parents are prepared to retire a family farming enterprise may not be attractive enough from an economic perspective. In cases like these, it’s often necessary for a young farmer to combine their farming profit with an off-farm income. “Then, sometimes, the holding may be too small for them or the land type may not be suitable for all types of agriculture production,” Dillon adds.

SOLUTIONS

So what’s to be done? Dillon supports collaborative farming as a possible solution. Collaborative farming involves partnerships outside the family and has numerous benefits for all parties involved. The most notable of these are the economic advantages associated with achieving scale at lower capital costs, the sharing of best farming and management practices between two farmers, and risk-sharing. Three common structures for collaborative farming in Ireland are registered farm partnerships, share farming, and contract rearing of replacement heifers. While the concept has the potential to help young farmers access the land they need, Dillon explains that they may have to move outside of their geographical comfort zone to seek an appropriate partnership.

“They have [got] to look outside the farm gate, they have to look outside the parish in a lot of cases and maybe look outside the province in some cases... look at opportunities where farmers have no identified successor,” he says. “There are some sustainable, economic farms in this country that have no identified successor, where the farmer has built up the farm and has no one to hand it on to.”

One of the core advantages of collaborative farming for the older farmer who is not yet ready to step away from their business is that these collaborative arrangements allow them to continue to build upon their years of work and ensure the future of their farm with someone they trust. “That’s a new area that we didn’t have much of a culture around in the past, about working with neighbours or working with different farmers under new types of collaborative arrangements,” says Dillon, stressing that the problems surrounding farm succession are not solely about ownership of land but also access. “We can get very hung up on who owns the land in this country and we have got a huge attachment to land in this country, but it’s about access to farm the land.”

The recently proposed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) cuts are another hurdle facing Irish farmers of all ages and sectors and have become an industry-wide concern. Many feel that the European Commission’s recommendation of a reduction in funding of five per cent will have a damaging effect on farmers across the continent. Dillon agrees that these cuts will have a detrimental impact on agriculture and Macra na Feirme, along with several other farming organisations, have called on the government to intervene before it’s too late.

“It’s not the time to be cutting the budget in Europe in terms of agriculture. That’s from our own organisation’s perspective. It is not the time when it’s highlighted at European level that generation renewal is a critical issue, it’s not the time to reduce the overall CAP agriculture budget,” he says. Dillon believes that such cuts would provide an obstacle to the initiatives necessary to entice the next generation into the industry. Macra na Feirme recently called for 10 per cent of the total CAP budget to be dedicated to generational renewal. “We can have all the schemes and ideas in the world but we need the finance as well to make it happen,” he notes.

Alongside the issues of access to land and an uncertain future for CAP payments, access to capital is another key area of concern. The start-up costs associated with farming can be significant – machinery purchases, building a livestock herd, or buying or renting land. For example, starting up a dairy enterprise would require a relatively high six-figure sum between milking and housing facilities, land, and livestock. Macra na Feirme has also called on the government to introduce start-up aid to combat this barrier. Still, Dillon notes that young farmers do have several advantages that can be an asset to them when starting out.

“Farming is a capital-intensive industry, so even for young farmers to start out they need stock, they need to get machinery. There’s a lot of things that have to be invested in a farm before there’s a return and they have no track record in this, but what they do have are the skills, the ability, the drive and the labour,” he states. “They have skills which are absolutely critical and I suppose if we can focus young farmers to realise they have these qualities and skills and attributes and [regarding] the capital thing, we have to be creative around that.”

While a lack of track record in terms of capital presents significant barriers, as can access to land or other concerns, Dillon feels that no young farmer should be discouraged from the agricultural sector for this reason.

“If you want to go farming and you want to make a career in farming there are other ways around that,” he says. “That’s where land mobility and access to land and supports around that are critical. Because once young farmers have invested in the education, training and skills that they need, there are ways around the traditional barriers.”

Alison O’Connor from Kerry Macra na Feirme club Causeway after being announced as the winner of the 2018 Macra na Feirme Blue Jean Country Queen festival. Photo: David Gilroy Derrie Dillon

MUCH ADO ABOUT MALT

ERIC HAUGHAN REPORTS ON IRELAND’S MALTING BARLEY SECTOR – THE GOOD NEWS STORY THAT’S YET TO BE TOLD

IRELAND’S failure to harness the massive earning potential of the malting barley industry may be leaving green grass in the fields – and millions of euro for the Exchequer on the table.

That is the feeling on the ground and in the tillage sheds after the latest round of talks with Boortmalt and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) left Irish malt barley farmers only very slightly better off at the end of the day than at the beginning. The latest pricing structure for malting barley will see Irish growers paid a slight increase, taking the figure to around €190 per tonne, but that hasn’t cut much ice with farmers. Bobby Miller, chairman of the Irish Grain Growers Group (IGGG), reckons we may have finally happened upon the straw that could break the camel’s back. And that could be bad news for an industry that, it is argued, could match the dairy sector when it comes to export potential.

“Farmers are still not happy. The reality is that winter barley and winter wheat are still outperforming malting barley,” Miller explains. “At the end of the day, the farmer needs more money in his pocket. People are sick of hearing farmers moaning – but that’s the reality of it.” That reality appears to suggest that barley farmers in Ireland are operating with one hand tied behind their back. They produce a product that should marry perfectly with one of our country’s most famous exports: whiskey. The catch? Irish distillers are under no obligation to produce their delightful refreshments using Irish grain. Whether a whiskey made with French maize can be called ‘Irish’ at all might be an argument for another day, but to satisfy the Irish Whiskey Act of 1980, all distillers need do is keep their finished product in Ireland for at least three years.

In short, Irish whiskey need have no Irish raw materials involved, just so long as it has been in storage long enough to pass the equivalent of rugby’s residency rule. “How whiskey is blended and produced is what makes it Irish,” Miller argues. “But the fact they don’t use any Irish raw material would naturally be a concern of ours. They can piggyback, for want of a better word, [on] the Irish image – the Irish countryside, Irish farmland – but they don’t have to use Irish material to make their whiskey. Our malting barley has such huge potential. We see that growth in the whiskey industry here in Ireland, especially, and the craft beer industry [is] another example. If there was more focus on this industry here in Ireland, it has huge export value. There is huge value here for the Exchequer, no question about that.” Miller points to our near neighbours in

Scotland, noting that the whiskey industry there is in “great health” and that Ireland is far behind their level. “In fact, we’re so far behind, that that’s actually why it might look like we’re making such great strides of late – because we started so far behind!” he adds. “The Irish whiskey industry, 100 years ago, was the largest in the world but it saw, for varying reasons, a real downfall, reaching its lowest point probably about 15 years ago. It has only really now in the last few years been reawakened.” Despite the revival of our whiskey industry and the relatively recent transformation of gin from a tipple your fun aunt may have drunk at Christmas into the most fashionable, must-have accessory in every city centre bar, this has all meant precious little to malting barley growers. In effect, this upsurge in the whiskey and spirits industry has left Irish malting barley growers behind as, save for a few smaller operations, the distilleries have largely shopped elsewhere for their raw materials. It doesn’t have to be this way, according to Miller. Staying local and sourcing their barley at home would mean an added expense for distilleries that is so minuscule that it may be argued it is hardly worth taking into account. “The likes of the Waterford Distillery are living proof that a distillery can use Irish grain and still operate successfully,” he says. “The reality is what they pay for the malted barley is very insignificant in “AT THE END OF THE the greater scheme of how much it costs to produce DAY, THE FARMER NEEDS their final product. The actual raw material is a tiny portion of that outlay. They can well afford to invest MORE MONEY IN HIS in Irish raw material. You’re talking about 0.1 per cent of the final expense.” POCKET. PEOPLE ARE SICK OF HEARING FARMERS MOANING – BUT THAT’S THE REALITY OF IT.”

THE WAY FORWARD

An outsider looking in could be forgiven for wondering how it has come to this. The tillage farmers appear to have had enough of the status quo and are ready to move their agenda forward – through whatever channels are open to them.

“We’d hate to have to go down the legal route, but if it’s the only option left open to us we will try it,” Miller insists. “The expense needed to keep the malting barley farmer happy is very small compared to the bigger picture. That’s the reality. But if it’s a case that we’ll have to go down the route of insisting that 50 per cent or 70 per cent of whiskey is made with Irish malting barley – and pointing out that a lot of the whiskey made here is made with no Irish raw materials at all – then it is something we will have to consider. We cannot tie the industry down that it couldn’t expand, of course not. But Irish grain farmers will be supporting distilleries that are going to commit to using totally Irish grain. And there are a few such distilleries who operate this way... The larger players – and you don’t need me to tell you who they are – they don’t use Irish grain. In a lot of cases, they use 100 per cent imported raw material. The distillers are happy living in the world they’re living in. We’re not happy with our lot but they’re quite happy to be ‘let away’ with how things are going, so to speak, and