TILLAGE farmers in West Cork face a dark future without government support with thousands of acres of grain uncut due to weather conditions.
Grain fields have been devasted by the heavy rains which meant harvesting could not be done. The arrival of Storm Agnes last week has exacerbated the problem further.
‘I’ve never come across such damage and the amount of acres that couldn’t be cut because of the weather,’ Fine Gael West Cork Senator Tim Lombard declared.
‘We’re now into the month of October cutting grain – when did we ever hear of that happening before?’
Nationally there are around 5,000 full-time tillage farmers producing the majority of output, but around 10,000 farms are involved in tillage at some level. Sen Lombard says thousands of acres are affected in the West Cork area.
He addressed the Seanad on the issue and urged the Department of Agriculture to intervene to aid the affected farmers, who had huge input costs at the start of the year as fertiliser costs were so high. They had been unable to cut earlier because it simply wasn’t ripe.
‘Thousands of acres of grain haven’t been cut and it’s quite possible we will not save it. Most of it is lodged. I walked a field of oats last Sunday and 62 acres of oats wasn’t three inches tall. This crop four or five weeks ago was the bones of four feet. (Now) it’s bent over, tossed.
‘These will lose their shirts in the next weeks and some of the grain won’t be saved at all, because of weather conditions, soil conditions, they won’t come out with 200 weight per acre.
‘I honestly think this is a once in a generational issue for the cohort of farmers caught. A fund should be put in place because these guys are not going to survive unless they get support. Unless something is done for them I don’t think there is any opportunity for them to exist going forward.’
He called for an Oireachtas debate with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue about the potential to intervene with aid. ‘These farmers will be devastated and destroyed unless we step into the arena,’ said Sen Lombard.
Mr McConalogue has since acknowledged a letter from the Seanad but Sen Lombard said there must be action now. ‘They need help now.’
Tillage farmers across areas like Wexford, Waterford, and the Midlands could also be left in the hopeless position of having their crop uncut and their livelihoods in jeopardy, Sen Lombard added.
