The Farmers Alliance have demanded that Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, resign with immediate effect.
Speaking to Gript spokeswoman Helen O’Sullivan said the minister has sat idly by as green policies are set to “decimate” Irish farming.
Referencing plans to reduce the National herd by 30% on a phased basis, Farmers’ Alliance said McConalogue “has sat idly by as Irish dairy farmers are being forced to slaughter 200,000 heavily in-calf cows.”
“The Minister has done absolutely nothing to prevent this completely unnecessary and senseless act” it said adding that the decision to slaughter the animals “is a political decision not a scientific one.”
Continuing to criticise the minister’s ‘lack of action’ the FA said one need only “look to across the water to our nearest neighbours where the Welsh Assembly has authorised its farmers to maintain the 250kg/Ha of Nitrogen from livestock manure.”
“This will create a huge animal welfare crisis.”
Spokeswoman Helen O’Sullivan said “the new nitrogen derogation limit which has been cut from 250 kgn/ha to 220 kgn/ha will mean for farmers in the catchment area which is pretty much every county the farmer will either have to slaughter their heavily in calf cows or obtain more land by 1st January 2024.”
“This will affect around 7,000 farmers. This will create a huge animal welfare crisis.” she said
“This will also put huge pressure financially and mentally on the farmers, bearing in mind these farmers are already under severe pressure due to the drop in milk price and inputs sky rocketing,” she said.
O’Sullivan continued that farmers “have invested hugely in their enterprise which include slurry storage and low emission slurry spreading equipment. They have done everything they were asked to do but still they are being penalised!” she said.
Saying that farmers are being “unfairly scapegoated” when it comes to water quality and climate change, O’Sullivan said that slaughtering cows “will make no difference to water quality.”
“All that will happen is the bigger dairy farmers will rent the land from the smaller dairy farmers as they will not be viable due to nitrogen cuts. Not only this but the beef, sheep, tillage, and vegetable farmers will be squeezed out due to not being able to compete for said lands as rent for land will be over and above due to demand by the bigger dairy farmer to stay at the 250 kgn/h.” she said.
The ‘decimation’ of rural Ireland
O’Sullivan said the moves will be “the decimation of rural Ireland describing the police as a “death by a 1,000 cuts” for Irish farmers. “First it was our sugar beet industry, then our horticultural industry, they have been trying to get rid of our beef industry for years and now it’s our dairy industry,” she said accusing Europe of wanting to “close down rural Ireland” while the government are ”sitting on their hands doing nothing to challenge or stop it.”
O’Sulllivan said this was “definitely a political decision” and not one based on scientific evidence.
‘Senseless act of slaughter’
The FA said this “senseless act of slaughtering perfectly healthy in-calf cows is a vain attempt by our Government to prove their “green credentials” to their EU masters irrespective of the devastating impact it will have on farming communities and food security.”
“Many suspect that these unnecessary slaughtering are to offset Dublin Airport’s Government supported proposal to increase passenger numbers by more than 25% which will result in the airport’s emissions increasing by more than 250,000 tonnes of CO2e. To put this into context this increase equates to almost 45,000 dairy cows.” it said.
The FA also accused Minister McConalogue of failing to “safe guard farming and rural communities when it comes to the Nature Restoration Law” claiming that the law would “take thousands of acres of farmland out of production, will force the shutdown of many family farms, and will undermine our food security.”
It accused the minister’s response to these concerns as being little more than ‘a shrug of his shoulders’ and saying there is nothing he can do about it.
“This is an absolutely shocking attitude from a country’s Minister of Agriculture who unlike his Welsh counterparts has turned his back on farming and rural communities, and our agricultural industry.” it said adding, “We are losing the right to farm our land.”
Last February Independent TD Mattie McGrath called plans contained within a report by the Environmental Protection Agency to cull the national herd a “vicious strike against the heart of rural Ireland”.
At the time he said, “This report, compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency, a government agency, lays bare the devastating impact of the government’s radical green policies on Irish farming. The proposals, which aim to reduce the national herd by 30 percent, will destroy the livelihoods of Irish beef, dairy, and sheep farmers and compromise the very food production that our nation depends on.”
“If these proposals are implemented, rural Ireland will face ‘mass destruction.’ The report calls for a reduction in livestock numbers and a quadrupling of forestry cover, together with re-wetting 90 percent of reclaimed land, will have a devastating impact on our communities, homes, and traditions. The authors of the report seem to have no regard for the people who call rural Ireland home, as their proposals would turn it into a national park.”
“It is evident that the government has lost touch with rural Ireland, as evidenced by the creation of this report, which was funded by taxpayers’ money, and their plans to hammer farmers with emissions reduction targets of 25 percent. The world needs more food, not less, and it is unjust to restrict food production and leave land unused.”
“We demand an unequivocal statement from the Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture, assuring us that no reductions in cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep will be considered or implemented, and that the report will be immediately disregarded and incinerated.”
Dr. Matt Treacy previously wrote that the government’s plans to reduce the national herd amounted to 200,000 cattle “being sacrificed on the altar of climate change”.
Last May he wrote: According to a report published this morning by the Farming Independent the state’s commitment to achieving targets on carbon emissions will require that almost 200,000 cattle will have to be destroyed over a three year period.
This would involve the payment of €600 million to “encourage” farmers to take part.
The scheme is described as “voluntary” but the targets are mandatory. Nor will it end there as it is estimated that the national livestock herd will need to be reduced by 740,000 in the longer term.
Read the full report here.