FARMERS TAKING STOCK OF MART CLOSURES ON LIVELIHOODS

WHEN John O’Hanlon succeeded Adrian Leddy as IFA Regional Executive Officer for this area in September, little did he know the rollercoaster journey that would unfold in few short months.

From the farmers’ protests over beef prices, to the General Election, to IFA national elections and now, the biggest crisis of them all, Covid-19.

The challenges we are facing amid this pandemic will be felt throughout every community, both rural and urban, for a long time to come as businesses shut down and struggle to survive.

It’s unchartered territory for everyone and the farming community too is trying to get to grips with what the future holds as the country tries to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

Having been the mart manager in his native Ballymahon for many years, John knows first hand what the impact of mart closures will have on the ordinary farmer.

Not only is the mart a place to trade and see up close how the martket is doing, for many, in particular the elderly, the mart is also a big social outlet for them in their weekly lives.

One positive he says from all of this is that there is an increase in beef sales to supermarkets, both in Ireland and the UK as people stock up. John is encouraging people to support their own as much as possible during this pandemic and buy good quality Irish dairy and meat produce.

He spoke to The Sligo Champion from his Longford home in the midst of getting set up to work remotely like the majority of Irish people at the moment.

“I’m working from home now as are all of the IFA staff with our offices closed, I’m trying to get around some broadband issues, it’s not that easy,” he laughed.

His role covers counties Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Longford so it’s an extremely large region and John said he was grateful to work in tandem with his predecessor Adrian Leddy for a number of months before taking over.

He has always had a background in farming and worked for many years as the Ballymahon mart manager.

“I suppose I always had a hand in the IFA and my father was the former county chairman. When the job came up, I decided to go for the interview and was lucky to get it.

“It has been very challenging, I went in before the beef crisis, when the pickets were in full swing, then we had the national elections in the IFA and then the General Election and now we are into Covid-19.

“It has been a rollercoaster of events, a topsy turvy last number of months.”

With Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announcing the closure of all non-essential businesses last week, that also included marts, which will greatly impact farmers.

John said: “Marts initially tried to stay open as best they could with the social distancing guidelines and all of that. But the mart scene is very concentrated, with Colosseum-type rings and people are all crowded in at the ring to look at the animals, so it was always going to be very difficult in terms of social distancing.

“There was also a concern not just for the customer, but the mart staff and those in the offices with a lot of people coming in and out, handling money and cattle cards and so forth.

“The nature of the clients too, a lot of them would be elderly and no offence to them, but they would be coming up very close as they might not hear properly and that certainly would not be social distancing from that perspective,” he explained.

He said that as there wasn’t a lot of leadership forthcoming from the Government or the Minister for Agriculture prior to the closure, marts were trying to segregate people as best they could before they were eventually shut down last week.

This now means that it’s very hard to price what cattle are worth.

“There are a lot of platforms for selling such as Done Deal and so forth, but farmers like to look at the open market so it is now very hard to price what cattle are worth.

“Farmers need to move stock, they might need finance or they might need room and it’s very hard to know where the market is at now.

“Plus there is the issue of collecting money, the mart offers security to farmers in that sense too.”

John points out that for people, particularly of an older generation, trading through other platforms away from the mart is extremely difficult for them.

“Many people are not used to buying and selling like that. Farmers are going to have to deal with the loss of income and the loss of control.

“The mart is a social interaction for them too, no more than maybe the pub on a Friday night when they talk about where farming is at, prices and all of that.

“The mart is a big melting pot of agriculture information for people. The younger farmers more than likely are IT savvy and can go on computers and Facebook and the likes of Farmers Forum and Done Deal, but many farmers have limited or no computer skills and in some cases might not even have a mobile phone.

“They are completely depending now on the print media as there are no marts doing reports on the market.

“The biggest problem now with the mart closures is how the stock is valued.

“The Minister was meeting with mart managers yesterday (Tuesday) but it’s not yet known if anything came out of that. How marts are going to pay staff too is another issue.”

John said the IFA has been working closely with ICOS to get Farm to Farm movements operating through the marts in the midst of this crisis. “Marts have the expertise in weighing and security of payment.

“A submission has been made to the Department of Agriculture which in turn is being examined by the COVID 19 group. We are awaiting a decision on that.

“So I suppose the advice I would give farmers is to contact your local mart and see if they can facilitate the transaction.

“The mart will hold the position of honest broker if an agreement can be reached with the Department to facilitate trading and this will also provide a market report for the live trade and a benchmark for pricing store cattle.”

In the meantime, he said farmers should talk to a trusted source before selling, be it their friends, neighbours or people they know doing trade.

“Consult someone before selling, that would be the best advice. There is a lot of information too on the IFA website (www. ifa.ie) as well as digital platforms and media platforms.

“For elderly people, it’s important they are talking to people trading and trusted sources. In these testing times, it’s really important that people keep communicating as much as possible.

“There is a lack of information out there but there will be platforms that arise as this goes on.