Lismullen seminar speakers Donal Neville, Fionnbar Walsh and Thomas Neville.

Year of family farming marked at Lismullen conference

The price of land in Ireland is high at more than 33 times the average profit per hectare, Mairead McGuinness, MEP and vice-chair of the largest political grouping in the European Parliament, the EPP, told the annual Lismullen farm seminar last week.

Delivering the keynote address on family farming and how to sustain it at the Lismullin Conference Centre, the MEP said it is very rare that entry to farming is other than by way of inheritance. “This arises because at more than 33 times the average profit per hectare the price of land is high but there is also the issue of limited land availability with only 0.1 per cent of total farmland sold on the open market in 2010,” she said. Family farms transfer land from generation to generation, she said. “The recession hit part-time family farms hard. At its peak in 2006, some 58 per cent of farm households had off-farm income. Today, it is closer to 28 per cent, a dramatic decline, with real implications for both the family and the farm. Research shows that the income earned by spouses, mostly women, is significant in sustaining both the household and expanding the farm business.” The MEP said that support for the family farm model is strong in the EU, “even if it means different things in different member states”.

She said the reliance of family farming on off-farm income to sustain the farm business is both a strength and a weakness “of this predominant farming model”. McGuinness said 2014 has been designated by the United Nations as the international year of family farming, with the objective of raising awareness of how dependent we are on farming families to produce our food and to protect and maintain the rural environment. “There are 12 million farms in the EU, mainly family farms, with over 139,000 farmers here in Ireland. Globally there are 400 million family farms, many very small subsistence farmers. “That support for family farming is matched by a commitment to funding the CAP and maintaining payments to farmers, but to require them to deliver more ‘public goods’ to society,” she said. “Family farms are not just producers of beef, milk, grain and other produce, they are the backbone of rural communities and represent a constant presence and an anchor in a more mobile world. “In this year as we focus on family farms we should ask if we demand too much of them and we should ensure that to sustain them we have to provide decent services in rural areas, including broadband, childcare and other services which improve the quality of life in rural areas,” she concluded.

As a contribution to the UN International Year of Family Farming, the seminar focused on the need for family farming and how to sustain it. Keynote speakers included Mairead McGuinness, agricultural solicitor Aisling Meehan and Professor Gerry Boyle, Director of Teagasc. Fionnbar Walsh, father of Donal, the Kerry teenager who — while battling cancer— raised awareness on suicide in Ireland before his death in 2013, spoke about ways to combat the rise of suicide in the farming community.

Father and son Donal and Thomas Neville spoke on their experience of family farming. The conference sessions were chaired by Pat Smith, IFA general secretary, and Tom Clinton, former IFA president. The seminar was fully booked with attendees coming from Meath, Cavan, Louth, and Kildare.