There were high spirits among visitors to the Ploughing Championships on the first day of the farming exhibition held in the expansive farmlands of Co Laois.
This year’s showcase of rural life was a more gleeful affair than last year as temperatures topped 20 degrees on Tuesday.
People were seen enjoying ice cream as they wandered between the hundreds of stalls featuring everything from farm machinery to a brown bread-making competition.
The happy crowds came despite organisations warning that incomes across all types of farming – dairy, beef, sheep and tillage – had dropped last year and that there was a danger of “losing a generation of farmers” if the sector is not made more attractive for young people.
Several high-profile politicians were also in attendance as the battle to win the hearts and minds of rural Ireland begins ahead of a general election.
President Michael D Higgins formally opened the exhibition of farming and rural life on Tuesday afternoon, telling the crowd: “Farming in Ireland is more than mere production.
“It is a space of life. It has an intrinsic value that goes far beyond the economic, a way of life that must be cherished and protected.”
He added: “Farm families must be supported, nurtured and sustained. If farming as a way of life is to be sustainable in practice, it will require the security of better socially designed supports, better social protection, a social floor that ensures that those who are the backbone of our rural communities are not left behind.”
Asked about whether he put Fine Gael’s recent poll-topping performance down to the number of agricultural shows he has attended over the summer, Taoiseach Simon Harris said “polls come and polls go”.
“It’s very hard to reconnect and reset your party sitting behind a desk in Dublin. You’ve got to get out. You’ve got to be willing to listen. You’ve got to be willing to engage with people, and that’s been the beauty of the agricultural shows,” he added.
“Each one has a common factor, which is a sense of pride in their community and in the contribution of rural Ireland.
“On the polls, we take nothing for granted. We work hard, and I believe if you work hard every day and try to make a positive impact, then people might vote for you.”
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said that “the temperature of rural Ireland” can be measured at the Ploughing Championships, which she attended with the North's First Minister Michelle O’Neill.
“What struck me this year is the big conversation seems to be about sustainability and succession on farms, preparing for the next generation, and a real fear that farming may not be viable or attractive for young people to come and to have the life but also be part of the industry,” Ms McDonald said.
She said that the next general election “is going to be a very, very competitive election”.
“This election will boil down to the same formula of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael or the chance for a different government with a different approach on the big issues that matter,” she said.
“So that’s how we’re coming into the election, whenever it is.”
Denis Drennan, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), said that farmers had been at the centre of “a perfect storm” for more than a year.
He said that farmers’ income had “absolutely collapsed” across all sectors in 2023 compared with the previous year and for the dairy sector the drop was even greater – at 69 per cent.
Mr Drennan warned that there needed to be a solid foundation in farming to stop them “losing a generation of farmers”.
He said: “Farmers’ incomes have got worse this year due – I know it’s hard to believe today, it’s a picture-postcard day out there at the moment – but the weather for the past 15 months has been horrific.
“And then we have rules and regulations coming at us left, right and centre from an environmental point of view that people want to engage with but comes at a cost as well.
“So when your income is down, bad weather, a lot of regulation and a high cost system since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, so there’s a lot of things pitching against us and morale is low at the moment.”
He said that there was “very little” for farmers in the last budget and they are hoping an income volatility tool will be included in Budget 2025 to “smooth out the highs and lows of farming” and help make the sector more attractive for young people tempted by tech and pharma jobs.
“We’ve never had a lower number of farmers under 35. There’s a 16 per cent drop in the number of students applying in the CSO for agricultural courses, so we are really at a crossroads here and we need to do something to make the industry more attractive, or else we’re going to run out of farmers,” he said.
Francie Gorman, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), said this was an expensive time for all families and that delays in payments had put huge pressure on household budgets.
He called for support for the tillage sector and the “vulnerable” beef and sheep sectors, and for the cost of doing business and cost of borrowing money to be addressed.
He said: “Overall, it’s the cost of doing business, supports for the vulnerable sectors, and to see that RZLT (Residential Zoned Land Tax) sorted out.
“We were promised it would be done in last year’s budget, they came with a process for farmers to dezone land, and they’re looking at the process for dezoning land again and that’s not good enough.
“We need a definition of an active farmer, and that active farmer should not be encapsulated in the Residential Zoned Land Tax.”
He said there was evidence that if the farming groups work together on certain issues they can affect change, and “maybe keeps us honest”.
“Anna May McHugh, that runs the Ploughing Championships, always made that point to me that you’re always better working together and be united in rural Ireland than not because there’s enough people outside it looking to cut a lump out of us,” he said.
