Video: IFA
A major protest in Letterkenny yesterday evening saw a huge convoy of tractors travelling the dual carriageway and Four Lane to highlight the farmers’ crisis.
The protest, organised by Donegal IFA, echoes demonstrations across Europe opposing the heavy burden farmers face under EU policy.
Escalating costs have added to the anger, and farmer Tom Boyd told Donegal Daily that they want the public to heed their plight.
Tom runs the Lakeside suckler and sheep farm in Carrickfinn and says the frustration has been building for years.
“The supermarkets and the retailers are all increasing their prices to offset recent costs but farmers and getting no more than we’ve been getting for the last 15 years,” Tom said.
“I wholeheartedly agree with the customer, there can be frustration on the ground when it gets more expensive to feed a family, but we are seeing no benefits of that in our cheques from the mart or the factories.
“The farmer is getting nothing extra per kilo and the dairyman is getting nothing extra per litre.”
The government’s green agenda has brought new schemes and legislation regarding climate that Tom says are “crippling for the farmer and making us work twice as hard for the same money”.
“It shows that the farmer is at the bottom of the ladder,” he said.
“The ACRES scheme for example, where the farmer has had a lot of hoops to jump through but we still haven’t got the money that was supposed to be paid in December.”
Tom adds that farmers are not against the EU, but that the regulations are mounting to an unfeasible level.
“As farmers, we can’t do without the EU subsidies but where the problem is, we are already producing an already green product, such as grass fed Beef, but it is being regulated even more and more by the EU.
“The government in Ireland is getting all the flack, at the end of the day they are only being puppets for the EU, maybe they want to be the star pupil but we do produce a very green product in Ireland and we always have.”
Tom added his hope that the protests will result in real change. Major demonstrations in France have blocked highways, while in Brussels yesterday, farmers shut down the city centre with tractors and hay bales.
“They are making headway in France and hopefully it might be an awakening to those in power as well,” Tom said.
IFA President Francie Gorman said: “Farmers here have been watching the protests across Europe. They are just as frustrated by what is happening as farmers in other countries. They feel they are being regulated out of business by Brussels bureaucrats and Department of Agriculture officials who are far removed from the reality of day-to-day farming.
“Irish farmers are pro-EU, but there is mounting frustration about the impact of EU policy on European farmers, and its implementation here in Ireland. The general feeling amongst farmers across the EU is that ‘enough is enough’”.