Keeping the marts open is about much more than just the financial bottom line

Covid-19 continues to make a mockery of our plans for 2020. Few could have predicted a summer without the GAA or the Ploughing.

I’ve been working in farming media for 20 years and in this line of work, the week at the Ploughing is an annual highlight.

Despite the long days and traffic jams, the event brings home the scale and importance of our sector to the country.

There would have been some sighs of relief when the NPA announced the cancellation last week, but I suspect most of them would have emanated from Leinster House!

Even if you don’t like the Ploughing, if you think it has become too big or lost its focus, one thing is for sure it puts farming issues at the top of the political agenda for a week.

It’s always worth seeing awkward politicians out of their comfort zone and pressing the flesh with the plain people of Ireland, and the whole event forces farming issues onto the desks of the most powerful people in the land.

From dawn to dusk, the national media broadcast from the site, while the event garners front-page attention in the national newspapers.

And it has also been no harm that the Ploughing comes just weeks before the Budget is announced.

There will be unprecedented demands on the public purse this year and it will be a loss to the farming and rural communities that they won’t have the Ploughing to press home their priorities to the politicians this September.

One area where support is urgently needed is our livestock marts.

Social costs

As we report this week (see pages 8-9) the sector is facing a crisis the likes of which it never encountered before, and it’s not just about finances.

While the overall economic loss to the country from this pandemic will run into the billions, we also need to consider the below-theradar social costs.

The marts play a valuable social outlet for many in rural Ireland, and the cost of social isolation must be measured in more than just financial numbers.

Keeping marts open may not make sense on paper, but their importance from a social point of view should not be underestimated or devalued.