DEAR EDITOR

Where is the justice and fairness for farmers? Farming is a business. Farmers are businessmen and women. Farming businesses are as badly affected by the continuous rain as are businesses in towns and villages. Farming land is flooded causing crops, and in some cases animals, to be lost.

Yet what is the Government’s reaction? The day after the Midleton flooding, businesses were offered €25,000 to clear, refurnish, and restock their businesses. This was raised to €50,000 and then to €100,000. Now there is talk of losses in the millions in businesses in Galway.

What are farmer businesses getting? Farms that have lost their fodder crops in the Shannon Callows are being offered €325 per hectare with a cap of 15 hectares, totalling €4,875. If I have 16, 20 or 25 hectares, I get nothing for the loss of those bales of hay or silage, yet I still have stock to feed. I will have to buy in hay or silage, pay to have it delivered, and buy concentrates, all to make up what I have lost.

Insult

If I’m a tillage farmer, I’m offered €11 per acre. Some farm businesses have losses of up to €2,000 per hectare of corn crops taking into account the expenses of seed, fertiliser, sprays, diesel to tend the crop, land rent, and the loss of income – €11 is an insult.

And what about the potato crops that are rotting in the ground because they can’t be harvested, or rotting in storage because they are so wet going into the stores?

The Government is dithering on help. Their excuse, we can’t breach EU State aid rules. So the money to shops and restaurants, from the Government, ie, you and me, the taxpayer, is not State aid?

Farms where the business is dairy, sucklers, or dry stock are having to house the cattle early so the ground won’t be destroyed for the coming year. Early housing adds extra cost to the farm business balance sheet. What help do they get?

Multinationals may come and go, but the land is always with us. The direction this Government and the EU is traveling, when food production is needed, there will be no one with the knowledge to run Ireland’s largest indigenous industry, the family farm.