Ireland’s tillage sector has seen a massive contraction in its footprint over the past decades. And the decline continues.
The trials and tribulations generated on the back of the poor weather and equally challenging prices of the past 18 months are symptomatic of this trend.
However there are still many growers, who believe the industry can be put back on its feet. One of these people is Ollie Whyte, who farms close to Naul in north Co. Dublin.
“The recent Tillage Vision report on this issue had a few good suggestions included. But its conclusions were, at best, just sticking plaster solutions,” he told Agriland.
“They could not in any way be described as game changers for restoring the tillage sector to its former glory. The underlying emphasis of the vision group was, undoubtedly to relieve the derogation pressure on the dairy sector.
“When we see greater representation of dairy than full-time tillage growers in there, this was more or less the expected result.”
Whyte claimed that the same problem existed in Teagasc and Bord Bia for years when tillage had no board representative and the dairy sector had five or six “steering the ship”.
Tillage sector
“To solve any serious problem, it’s always best to start with the fundamentals,” Whyte continued.
The Dublin tillage farmer believes that poor prices, over decades, have driven the decline witnessed in Irish tillage farming.
He cites current returns at farm level as being the same as those available some 40 years ago. And, according to his calculations, this represents a 12-fold price drop in real terms.
“It’s not difficult to see why there is a problem and why tillage land has moved to other sectors,” he continued.
“So we have to look at why our price has not risen in line with cost increases like every other source of farm produce.
“The answer is very simple – it can be explained by our authorities allowing unfair cheap competition to dominate our feed markets.
“Under European Union and department of agriculture regulations, the environmental goalposts for Irish grain growers have been reduced to eye-of-needle proportions,” he added.
“However, at the same time, third countries outside the European Union, whose produce dominates the feed ration supply in Ireland, have been afforded goalposts the full width of the playing pitch.”
Whyte stated that EU standards do not apply here and has claimed that every tonne of feed that is imported is in breach of European Union production standards .