Small farmers being pushed out as policy supports exports over food sovereignty.

Last weekend members of People Before Profit from all across the island, including Bríd Smith TD for Dublin South-Central, gathered in Ox Mountain, near Tubbercurry in county Sligo to meet with farmers, discuss the problems they face living off the land and to develop a new policy that places farmers at the centre of a secure, stable and sustainable food system.

Before the event all attendees met with small farmers and discussed the issues they were facing with many saying they could barely make a living off the land, the inequality in CAP rates was making their farm unviable, how rising costs were wiping out any price increases they received for milk, produce or livestock, needing to work a second job just to make ends meet and how they feel undervalued and villainised by some environmentalists.

The gathering heard from Gerry Loftus of the "Rural Ireland Organisation" who explained the origins of the common agricultural policy, CAP, and how its structure over the past 40 years has encouraged farming practices that destroy the carrying capacity of the soil and promote the development of larger farms at the expense of smaller ones. During his presentation Loftus claimed,

“the IFA has been misleading small farmers for 25 years to maintain unequal payments which only benefit big industrial dairy operations and now sheep, suckler and small to medium dairy farmers will be left to face the brunt of any call to cull cattle to reduce emissions from the agriculture sector.”

An overview of the current situation for farmers who were trying to farm in a sustainable way, outside the intensive livestock model promoted by large agribusinesses was given describing how it's almost impossible for farmers to transition out of livestock and into agroecology and other more sustainable forms of farming without losing access to payments needed to support that transition.

It was also highlighted how Ireland is one of only 4 countries that is in receipt of a Nitrate derogation where high intensity, mostly dairy, farmers are allowed to spread nearly 50% more fertiliser on their land than in other parts of the EU. While all other countries using this derogation are reducing the amount of nitrates spread on the land, Ireland is still increasing these levels. This leads to additional leakage of nitrates into the water supply, reducing water quality and has been linked to a reduction in bacterial biodiversity in the soil which can reduce the long term ability for the soil to support crops.

After the event Ruairí Fahy, Limerick City North representative for People Before Profit commented, “we're hurtling headlong into food shortages in service of a beef and dairy industry which is actively taking food from the mouths of the poorest in the world to feed animals in Ireland for export to some of the wealthiest countries in the world; Europe, the US, China and Japan. Farmers are being placed on a conveyor belt having to take on large debts to keep their farms viable while farm expansion is further destroying water and soil quality threatening our ability to produce food in the future.

“If we're serious about tackling climate change and biodiversity we can't lay the blame at farmers who are responding to the structure of the grants and cartel like markets of the co-ops, abattoirs and supermarkets who hold all of the power.

“We need to give farmers control over their produce in service of delivering local, healthy and sustainable food for their communities instead of serving this export led model that is sucking the life from the soil, the farmers and the meat plant, shop and dairy workers to stuff the pockets of some of Ireland's wealthiest businessmen.

“We have left our food policy in the hands of vested interests who care more about their profits today that they do about food sovereignty for everybody on this island. To put sustainability and sovereignty at the core of our food systems farmers need to be given a greater say in how and what they grow alongside the communities they serve instead of listening to the financial needs of multinationals as it currently stands.”