President of the ICMSA Pat McCormark delivered a stinging address at the organisation’s AGM, challenging co-ops, Budget 2019 and bank interest rates to do more for farmers.

“To put it as its mildest, our banks are robbing us on interest rates and charges – and have been permitted to do so,” McCormack told the crowd.

He stated that a survey carried out by the ICMSA across Europe found that Ireland’s rates “were completely out of line and excessive”.

McCormack questioned why the interest rate for the proposed farmer loan scheme in 2019 would be significantly higher at around 5%, than the previous loan scheme aimed at farmers in 2017 – where the interest rate stood at 2.95%.

Co-ops

In a blistering assault on dairy co-ops, he said that the ICMSA “does not accept the line that says that the market sets the price”.

“The market itself is visibly broken and has become the plaything of very powerful corporate links further along the supply chain who manipulate it at will and dictate price forwards to the fridge and backwards to the cow.”

You’re either with us or you’re with the retail corporations

“Co-ops are predicting a milk price below 30 cents per litre for 2019, the same level that applied in 1998. I ask the question, what has happened wages and other costs in co-ops since 1998?

“Would workers or co-op executives accept the same wages as 1998?”

He called on co-ops to publish the increase in their wages and other costs since 1998, and said that farmers were tired of being the fall guy when it came to the whims of the market.

“A word of warning here for the processors: you’re either with us or you’re with the retail corporations; you’re either part of the solutions or you’re part of the problem,” he said.

Budget 2019

Budget 2019 was essentially a “non-event” for farmers, according to McCormack.

He addressed the Minister for Agriculture directly and said that the ICMSA were “very disappointed” not to see income stabilisation delivered in Budget 2019.

“The times for excuses are past,” he said.

“Farmers, the vast majority of whom are sole traders, need to see delivery on a real taxation measure that is proven to deal with income volatility.”

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