Agriculture data for 2018 shows weather added half a billion euro to farm costs
Commenting on the preliminary estimate on the output, input and income in Agriculture for 2018, the President of ICMSA, Pat McCormack, said that the 16.1 per cent reduction in operating surplus highlighted the exceptionally difficult year experienced by farmers with the impact of the severe weather conditions resulting in an increase of €500m in the cost of inputs.
“In terms of financial impact on farmers, the figures are catastrophic and show the cost of feed increasing by over €350m and fertiliser by €70m. Those figures speak for themselves, and from the perspective of our dairy farmer membership, we have to factor-in the €43m reduction in the value of milk production to get an even more accurate idea of the challenge that Irish farming faced this year”, said Mr. McCormack.
“The figures are frightening, but it’s the underlying message that’s more important: Our farming sector is completely exposed to Brexit, to abuse by links further along the supply chain and to extreme weather with the result that farm income can – and is – fluctuating wildly from year to year. We desperately need measures that can address that destructive cycle and I regret to say that a proven solution – the Farm Management Deposit Scheme – was offered to the Government well in time for Budget 2019 and they, astonishingly, overlooked it”, he said.
“Farmers seem to have been abandoned to wild price and income volatility on both the input and output sides with only slow and tentative moves to stop their already low margins being eroded further by both processing and retail corporations. It must be obvious to everyone looking at Irish farmers having to pay more than half a billion euros in extra costs in 2018 that this can’t go on and we must see radical and long-overdue measures to tackle this completely unsustainable income and costs volatility,” he added.
“Brexit is now days away and we still operate in the dark, with no certainty of what faces us. At the very least, the EU and our government should publish their actual programmes as to how they intend to support farmers, whether it is a ‘Deal’ or ‘No-Deal’ Brexit. We cannot continue to operate in a vacuum and we need to see definite actions immediately”, said Mr. McCormack.