Reopening of mart provides relief for farmers across the county
A staple part of life for farmers in Wexford is the weekly visit to the Enniscorthy Mart. And last Tuesday, for the first time since the lockdown was initiated, the Mart once more played host to farmers, their livestock and potential buyers and sellers.
‘We’re delighted it’s back up and running, trade was a little bit down because of the lack of rain and grass but there was some encouraging signs with rain the other evening,’ said IFA Chairman for Wexford James Kehoe.
‘We’re lucky the mart is so big, it allowed us to adhere to social distancing practises without too much difficulty.’
Liam O’Byrne is the Manager of the Mart, and he said it was ‘heartening’ to see a return to something approaching normality.
‘We had a good crowd, it was lovely to see all the cars and jeeps back, very heartening. We abided by the rules advised by the authorities, had hand sanitisers, the whole lot.’
And Liam revealed that the global pandemic had forced the Mart to implement a new method of displaying livestock, a method which would benefit everyone in the long run.
‘We had been working on an online system beforehand, operating in the auction ring when it was when allowed. And when we reopened last week we kept the online system going and had some bids come in.
‘I had a phone call afterwards from a farmer who said he’d sold additional stock because of it, he was delighted. So in a way something good came out of the pandemic, we would never had had this online system only for it.’
Having only assumed the role of manager this year, Liam said the last few months have presented huge challenges not just for the mart, but for the local farming community in general.
‘It hit us badly because the last two weeks were peak times for sales. It wasn’t easy at the time and it is going to have an effect, the bottom line is we are going to lose money over this, there was a couple of weeks when we weren’t doing anything at all.’
The Enniscorthy Mart is now open again on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and those wishing to view proceedings online should contact the mart on 053 9231900 for further details.