FARMERS WHO NORMALLY HAVE THEIR FIRST CUT IN BY JUNE ARE STILL WAITING TO GET OUT ON TO THE LAND

was constant rain,” he added. The same weather is causing huge problems for the county’s livestock farmers, who meet in emergency session in Ballintra in south Donegal tonight to consider the crisis.

Adam Kerrigan, who farms in Ballintra, near Ballyshannon, and runs a silage/slurry contracting business there, said he has never seen the land so wet in all his years farming and contracting in the area.

“I was born in 1985 and the men I deal with say the current situation is even worse than back then and that was a really bad year,” he explained.

“You can’t get on to the land because it is so wet, and farmers who normally have their firstcut in by the end of May or the start of June are still waiting to get out on to the land. What silage we have cut so far is just water,” he said.

“I have never seen it so bad. The livestock farmers are totally sick of it.

“Firstly they have to deal with bad factory prices and then the constant rain throughout the year. They are telling me that there will be fewer cattle reared in Donegal next year,” Mr Kerrigan added.

The whole mess is being compounded by the upcoming slurry deadline, which is causing panic among the county’s livestock farmers.

“With the weather so bad here they were forced to bring in their livestock and now the slurry tanks are filled up again and they have to be emptied by the slurry deadline in October,” he pointed out.

Between the slurry tanks overflowing and the shortage of fodder, the farmers are becoming spooked and depressed, he said.

Last week, Kerrigan only managed to get out on Wednesday and worked from 6am to midnight, but by Thursday his contracting equipment had to be laid up again because of another bout of heavy rain which was expected to last until last weekend.

He said a fodder crisis in the country was inevitable.