4 February 1999 Edition
The fodder is running out - and with it a way of life
Serious fodder crisis reveals catastrophe for small farmers, says Roisín de Rossa
``There just is no food left. What fodder there is selling at exorbitant prices, £3 or more for a bale of hay, more than £20 for a bale of silage. Farmers are out scouring the roads looking to buy fodder. There isn't any to be had,'' says Pat Gilhooly, a farmer from Ballinamore, Co Leitrim. ``And it's the same all over the West - Roscommon, Longford, Cavan, Mayo, Galway, Kerry.''
``Every farmer will tell you the same. If we've enough to keep going till the end of February, we're lucky. But with the ground like it is, the cattle won't be out in the fields till April, may be May. As it is the ground is so wet the cattle are up to their stomachs. And that might be all that gets up to their stomachs unless help comes soon.''
Peter Honeyman, a full time farmer and PRO for the IFA in Co Leitrim, talked of bringing 2,500 bales up from Wexford, at £300 a trip, to help out in the county, selling it on at cost price to farmers who are stuck. He says that at least £1000 per farm is needed urgently, with £40 per live unit. The measures announced this week of £20m for 40,000 farmers are not enough.
``The £300 which was given out before Christmas and which didn't get to every region, was no use either. At the present price per bale that would only feed ten cows for a couple of weeks.''
Farmers who have been farming for 50 years, or more, like Jo Gallogly from Ballinamore, say it's the worst crisis ever. Why? The immediate crisis arose because it has rained for 12 months. Farmers couldn't get onto the land to lift the hay or silage. It was too wet. The fodder shortage means that farmers needed to sell cattle. But the prices have collapsed.
``A 300kg. beast would fetch £400. Now you are lucky if you get £240,'' says SF Councillor Liam McGirl, another part-time farmer, who had to sell six cattle last week, and got nothing for them.
``The people in the midlands who used to be up buying up cattle for to finish. They are not coming up anymore, they'd rather sell fodder,'' says Pat Gilhooly.
The present crisis comes on top of the collapse of the rouble last October. Russia took 39% of all EU beef, and when this market collapsed, prices plummeted. And it was prices not just for beef, but also for sheep and pig. All have suffered disaster this year.
A glut on the EU market, a slump in Japanese demand because of their recession and the burning down of the Ballymoney plant last summer have combined to push pig prices, which tend always to be cyclical, down to what Liam Ryan of the IFA's pig committee says are their worst level ever. And the trouble with pigs is that when they are ready they have to go. A farmer is penalised on overfat pigs, in addition to having to keep feeding them.
Cavan and Monaghan pig farmers have been particularly badly hit. There is just nowhere to take the pigs for slaughter. They blame the minister for that. Of the 20 pig producers round Monaghan before Christmas, three are already gone. It is dire straits indeed.
How many small farmers will survive this latest crisis? Not very many, says Joe Gallogly. Perhaps a third to two thirds of the 2000 farmers remaining in the county.
``People forget that when we first joined the EEC, the Mansholt Plan dictated the future for Irish farming. In the West it was the nature trail and tourism.'' And that is what has happened.
We're now left with around 150,000 farmers. Some people will say this will be down to 30,000 in the next five to 10 years.
``There used to be 350 farmers bringing milk into Ballinamore,'' says Pat Gilhooly. ``Now there are less than 20. There are very few full time farmers left. But there aren't any part-time jobs either.''
A recent survey of smallholders in Roscommon showed that one farmer in two is earning less than £5,000 a year from farming. Leitrim is no different.
Back in the last century people fought for the Three F's and out of it we got peasant proprietorship, small farms, owner occupied. Increasingly they have become less viable in a world where now, at the start of the next century, we have to adjust to world prices set by US and Australasia and South America, where it's ranching, and land is rented. 50% of land in America changes hands every year. You'd fit all the sheep in Ireland in to one field in Australia.
With the expansion of the EU, Poland and Hungary about to join, the days where the EEC wanted at all costs to have self sufficiency in food, and was prepared to pay for it, are long gone. We are now facing into the next GATT round, which has to bring EU prices closer into line with world prices, with declining EU supports, which are under negotiation right now. All this says one thing - that there is no future for the small farmers of the west of Ireland on the land.
What did we do wrong? Joe Gallogly, who said all of this 20 years ago, says, ``Ireland never planned. Never produced the plan needed to enable farmers to become viable, with good husbandry, farming practice, secure markets and sustainable incomes.
``The smaller farmers couldn't implement a farm plan, because it meant he had to borrow, and he was too cute for that. It wasn't brains that kept him out of the banks, it was fear. As they say a small farmer lives poor and dies rich. He hangs onto the land he has, but with the price of land now at £2000 an acre, or more, he can't afford to buy more land. No farmer can afford to borrow to buy land.''
Instead everything has been left to the higgledy piggledy of the market, which of course in the EU is the most regulated market in the world, and has an iron law, that the big get bigger and the small go to the wall. The market, with its inherent cycles and uncertainties, has increasingly driven Irish farmers into reliance on `the cheque in the post'.
And the trouble with the cheque in the post is that the largest farmers have scooped the pot. The figures are astonishing. Ireland's top ten beef farmers shared grants last year of £1.5 million. One County Louth beef farmer alone cleaned up £400,000. The top ten tillage farmers walked away with £1.7 million between them. More than two thirds of the record EU transfer to Ireland of £2.7 Billion last year went to farming. But a massive 80% of these funds went to the richest 20% of farmers.
The money instead of being used to secure a sustainable agricultural base in counties where agriculture was inefficient small holdings, giving incomes well below national poverty levels, it was used to further widen the difference between rich and poor farmers.
Every time that farming hits a crisis, the larger farmer may sneeze, but the small farmer dies.
``And then,'' as Pat Gilhooly says, ``the meat market has to be taken out of the hands of the beef barons. Look at them. Just this week GreenIsle Meats was importing beef from Uruguay, at a time when Irish farmers can't sell their stock. Yet Irish taxpayers are still expected to pick up the tab of debts and EU fines incurred through their nefarious practices over the years. The barons set the farmers' price.
Only one out of every ten cattle is consumed in Ireland, the rest are for the boat. ``But there again is the trouble,'' says Pat. ``It's political why we can't sell into the African and Middle Eastern markets. The government doesn't want to offend the US. Markets like Libya, or Iraq have dried up.''
And so Mansholt's original grand design for the west is coming creeping into being. As forestry quietly spreads down into the lowland farms, the big house on the hill is coming back, but this time its not providing any jobs. The small farmer is on the road, with his hungry cattle. And he is not coming back.
``There just is no food left. What fodder there is selling at exorbitant prices, £3 or more for a bale of hay, more than £20 for a bale of silage. Farmers are out scouring the roads looking to buy fodder. There isn't any to be had,'' says Pat Gilhooly, a farmer from Ballinamore, Co Leitrim. ``And it's the same all over the West - Roscommon, Longford, Cavan, Mayo, Galway, Kerry.''
``Every farmer will tell you the same. If we've enough to keep going till the end of February, we're lucky. But with the ground like it is, the cattle won't be out in the fields till April, may be May. As it is the ground is so wet the cattle are up to their stomachs. And that might be all that gets up to their stomachs unless help comes soon.''
Peter Honeyman, a full time farmer and PRO for the IFA in Co Leitrim, talked of bringing 2,500 bales up from Wexford, at £300 a trip, to help out in the county, selling it on at cost price to farmers who are stuck. He says that at least £1000 per farm is needed urgently, with £40 per live unit. The measures announced this week of £20m for 40,000 farmers are not enough.
``The £300 which was given out before Christmas and which didn't get to every region, was no use either. At the present price per bale that would only feed ten cows for a couple of weeks.''
Farmers who have been farming for 50 years, or more, like Jo Gallogly from Ballinamore, say it's the worst crisis ever. Why? The immediate crisis arose because it has rained for 12 months. Farmers couldn't get onto the land to lift the hay or silage. It was too wet. The fodder shortage means that farmers needed to sell cattle. But the prices have collapsed.
``A 300kg. beast would fetch £400. Now you are lucky if you get £240,'' says SF Councillor Liam McGirl, another part-time farmer, who had to sell six cattle last week, and got nothing for them.
``The people in the midlands who used to be up buying up cattle for to finish. They are not coming up anymore, they'd rather sell fodder,'' says Pat Gilhooly.
The present crisis comes on top of the collapse of the rouble last October. Russia took 39% of all EU beef, and when this market collapsed, prices plummeted. And it was prices not just for beef, but also for sheep and pig. All have suffered disaster this year.
A glut on the EU market, a slump in Japanese demand because of their recession and the burning down of the Ballymoney plant last summer have combined to push pig prices, which tend always to be cyclical, down to what Liam Ryan of the IFA's pig committee says are their worst level ever. And the trouble with pigs is that when they are ready they have to go. A farmer is penalised on overfat pigs, in addition to having to keep feeding them.
Cavan and Monaghan pig farmers have been particularly badly hit. There is just nowhere to take the pigs for slaughter. They blame the minister for that. Of the 20 pig producers round Monaghan before Christmas, three are already gone. It is dire straits indeed.
How many small farmers will survive this latest crisis? Not very many, says Joe Gallogly. Perhaps a third to two thirds of the 2000 farmers remaining in the county.
``People forget that when we first joined the EEC, the Mansholt Plan dictated the future for Irish farming. In the West it was the nature trail and tourism.'' And that is what has happened.
We're now left with around 150,000 farmers. Some people will say this will be down to 30,000 in the next five to 10 years.
``There used to be 350 farmers bringing milk into Ballinamore,'' says Pat Gilhooly. ``Now there are less than 20. There are very few full time farmers left. But there aren't any part-time jobs either.''
A recent survey of smallholders in Roscommon showed that one farmer in two is earning less than £5,000 a year from farming. Leitrim is no different.
Back in the last century people fought for the Three F's and out of it we got peasant proprietorship, small farms, owner occupied. Increasingly they have become less viable in a world where now, at the start of the next century, we have to adjust to world prices set by US and Australasia and South America, where it's ranching, and land is rented. 50% of land in America changes hands every year. You'd fit all the sheep in Ireland in to one field in Australia.
With the expansion of the EU, Poland and Hungary about to join, the days where the EEC wanted at all costs to have self sufficiency in food, and was prepared to pay for it, are long gone. We are now facing into the next GATT round, which has to bring EU prices closer into line with world prices, with declining EU supports, which are under negotiation right now. All this says one thing - that there is no future for the small farmers of the west of Ireland on the land.
What did we do wrong? Joe Gallogly, who said all of this 20 years ago, says, ``Ireland never planned. Never produced the plan needed to enable farmers to become viable, with good husbandry, farming practice, secure markets and sustainable incomes.
``The smaller farmers couldn't implement a farm plan, because it meant he had to borrow, and he was too cute for that. It wasn't brains that kept him out of the banks, it was fear. As they say a small farmer lives poor and dies rich. He hangs onto the land he has, but with the price of land now at £2000 an acre, or more, he can't afford to buy more land. No farmer can afford to borrow to buy land.''
Instead everything has been left to the higgledy piggledy of the market, which of course in the EU is the most regulated market in the world, and has an iron law, that the big get bigger and the small go to the wall. The market, with its inherent cycles and uncertainties, has increasingly driven Irish farmers into reliance on `the cheque in the post'.
And the trouble with the cheque in the post is that the largest farmers have scooped the pot. The figures are astonishing. Ireland's top ten beef farmers shared grants last year of £1.5 million. One County Louth beef farmer alone cleaned up £400,000. The top ten tillage farmers walked away with £1.7 million between them. More than two thirds of the record EU transfer to Ireland of £2.7 Billion last year went to farming. But a massive 80% of these funds went to the richest 20% of farmers.
The money instead of being used to secure a sustainable agricultural base in counties where agriculture was inefficient small holdings, giving incomes well below national poverty levels, it was used to further widen the difference between rich and poor farmers.
Every time that farming hits a crisis, the larger farmer may sneeze, but the small farmer dies.
``And then,'' as Pat Gilhooly says, ``the meat market has to be taken out of the hands of the beef barons. Look at them. Just this week GreenIsle Meats was importing beef from Uruguay, at a time when Irish farmers can't sell their stock. Yet Irish taxpayers are still expected to pick up the tab of debts and EU fines incurred through their nefarious practices over the years. The barons set the farmers' price.
Only one out of every ten cattle is consumed in Ireland, the rest are for the boat. ``But there again is the trouble,'' says Pat. ``It's political why we can't sell into the African and Middle Eastern markets. The government doesn't want to offend the US. Markets like Libya, or Iraq have dried up.''
And so Mansholt's original grand design for the west is coming creeping into being. As forestry quietly spreads down into the lowland farms, the big house on the hill is coming back, but this time its not providing any jobs. The small farmer is on the road, with his hungry cattle. And he is not coming back.