On 23 June 2016, Irish farmers went to bed planning a day cutting silage, tedding hay or spraying crops in the beautiful mid-summer weather.
The following morning, they woke to discover the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union in what was a shock referendum result. Brexit, which until now had been little more than a niggling concern, was suddenly a grim reality for Irish farmers.
The Irish agri-food sector still had a massive dependency on the UK for our food exports.
Northern Ireland was now leaving the EU, despite the people of Northern Ireland having voted to remain in the EU, as had the people of Scotland.
The weight of support in England and to a lesser extent Wales had tipped the scales overall to a 52% to 48% outcome.
Immediately, there were concerns about how to best maintain the cross-border movement of livestock and agricultural goods between the two jurisdictions on the island. Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed described it as “an existential crisis” for Irish farming.
David Cameron, the UK prime minister who had called the referendum to appease the right-wing of the Conservative Party he led, promptly resigned.
Teresa May, who had herself opposed Brexit, took over. She tried to legislate for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
However, any proposals negotiated with the EU foundered as hardline pro-Brexit rebels within the Conservative Party blocked her every proposal as a sellout.
The option of remaining in the customs union, which would effectively have meant a continuation of common standards, was ruled out by May’s successor Boris Johnson.
A “hard Brexit” was now the agenda, with a complete severance not only politically, but also economically, with Britain leaving the customs union, which contains some non-EU members like Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Turkey (ironically, the prospect of Turkey joining the European Union was one of the elements of the Leave campaign).
It took until 2020 for Brexit to formally happen. All through the negotiations, fears expressed in some quarters that the “Irish question” would be pushed to one side were dispelled by the stance of the EU.
The European Commission’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier kept issues relating to Ireland’s interests firmly on the table at all times.
This may have been aided by Barnier having previously been the French Minister for Agriculture, who had a key role as chair of the ministerial council in the second half of 2008 both in the “health check” that saw the end of dairy quotas, and the World Trade Organisation talks in Geneva.
With the involvement of the Irish Government, led by Enda Kenny and then Leo Varadkar, a “backstop” protocol agreement that minimised north-south disruption on the island of Ireland was agreed. This caused unhappiness in Northern Ireland, as it created movement protocols between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
DUP leader Arlene Foster said, “the Northern Ireland Protocol has not worked, cannot work and in light of our proposals to the government, needs to be replaced.”
A number of adjustments have been made since then, addressing Unionist concerns. It’s fair to say that Ireland, and Irish farming, north and south, while working effectively with the arrangements that now exist, will forever live in the shadow of the Brexit vote.
‘We’re not gonna take it’: the Beef Plan protests gained momentum
In late 2018, a new farm organisation emerged; the Beef Plan Movement.
Formed by beef farmers Eamon Corley, a former member of the IFA’s livestock committee, and Hugh Doyle, another former IFA member, they held meetings across the country in mart rings, pledging to get tough with beef processors on behalf of cattle farmers.
Huge attendance endorsed the “get-tough” talk from the top table and the floor.
An 86-point plan was produced, which blurred rather than sharpened the fledgling movement’s focus. But using social media, particularly WhatsApp groups, the Beef Plan Movement continued to grow.
Having talked the talk through the spring, as cattle prices struggled to emerge from a post-Brexit slump, they moved to direct action on the August bank holiday weekend.
Farmers stood outside factory gates, preventing traffic from moving in or out. In contrast to the IFA action two decades before, which took place in cold January weather, long summer nights were spent leaning on round bales in shirt sleeves.
Stories of lorries of foreign meat being seen entering and exiting gained legs, and tempers soured. Bord Bia was distrusted by protestors, as was Government.
After a month, processors began serving injunctions on individual farmers, including many Beef Plan leaders. As cases progressed to the High Court, the IFA stepped in with legal support for farmer defendants.
The Beef Plan withdrew from formal leadership of the protests, which were now taken over by groups calling themselves Independent Farmers and Individual Farmers.
While this sounds like an echo of the events of the 2000 blockade, there was no overall guiding hand in charge nationally.
After seven weeks, following talks convened by Minister Michael Creed, the protests were stood down with the establishment of the Beef Stakeholders Forum with price transparency as one of the key promises.
The Beef Plan split acrimoniously, with the Irish Beef and Lamb Organisation being formed alongside the Beef Plan. Both sides formed producer groups that are now the most tangible presence of the original Beef Plan leadership.
Meanwhile, the more militant Independent Farmers and Individual Farmers brought their grievances to Dublin in November, causing traffic chaos but gaining little tangible outcome.
While the stakeholders forum has now faded into obscurity, the Bord Bia beef market tracker is a useful tool that emerged from its work and is certainly something tangible from that chaotic autumn.
Swing low: COVID-19 lockdown/Golfgate
St Patrick’s week 2020 saw Ireland go into full lockdown as the COVID-19 virus swept into the country.
In an attempt to slow the progress of the disease, movement was restricted to within 5km of home, apart from essential tasks. People worked from home, and Zoom and Teams apps became essential.
Former European Commissioner Phil Hogan during day one of the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor Golf Club in Adare, Limerick. \ Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Farming was also essential, the Government decided, with meat processing plants remaining open, and marts switching to online sales. Deliveries of feed, fertiliser, fuel, and milk collections continued to operate.
Meanwhile, a new Government was slowly forming. Micheál Martin was appointed Taoiseach in June, appointing Barry Cowen as Minister for Agriculture. The Offaly man became immediately embroiled in controversy regarding a historical drink driving incident and was sacked after only three weeks.
Mayo-man Dara Calleary succeeded him, but only three weeks later, he too was gone. Calleary attended a function at the Station House Hotel in Clifden, Co Galway, following a golf tournament organised by the Oireachtas golf committee.
The function was alleged to have breached the step-down lockdown rules; exceeding the 50-person maximum for such an event. Calleary didn’t even play golf, he attended the function to pay tribute to the late Mark Killilea, a founding member of the society, who had passed away the previous December. Calleary resigned from the role.
That wasn’t the end of the story. Ireland’s European Commissioner Phil Hogan, in the pivotal trade portfolio as Brexit negotiations reached a critical juncture, had also attended the function. He apologised but showed no intention of resigning.
However, the drip effect of other missteps, including the extent of his movements around the country and using his phone while driving saw pressure mount, and he eventually fell on his sword too.
Charlie McConalogue became the fourth agriculture minister in as many months (five if you count Micheál Martin’s brief stint in a caretaker capacity), while Mairead McGuinness eventually became Ireland’s commissioner.
A court case was taken against hoteliers James and John Sweeney, and Oireachtas Golf Society leaders Donie Cassidy and Noel Grealish. All four were acquitted, with Judge Mary Fahy finding that the function for 81 people had two distinct areas catering for two groups.
Now, four years on, Dara Calleary is widely tipped to be a Minister in the Government that will have been announced by the time you read this, while Noel Grealish is set to be a “super-junior” Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture.
Cuts like a knife: the derogation cut
The summer of 2023 was ambling along for dairy farmers when thunder struck. While prices had fallen back sharply from the highs of 2022, costs were falling too.
But then, on 30 June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dropped a bombshell. It published a map showing much of the country in red, meaning that nitrate levels in rivers in those areas were rising.
An IFA protest at the Department of Agriculture over the nitrates derogation. \ Philip Doyle
It quickly emerged that under the terms of the nitrates derogation obtained in March of 2022, these areas would see the maximum stocking rate fall from 250kg/ha of organic nitrogen to 220kg/ha.
Disbelief quickly turned to outrage.
The farm organisations said they had been kept in the dark by the Government that this was a possibility.
Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue pledged to work to minimise the impact of this hand grenade, as farmers protested in Kilkenny and Bandon.
As summer turned to autumn, the IFA made its presence felt outside the Fianna Fáil think-in at Horse and Jockey, and Fine Gael’s one in Limerick. The two government parties seemed to be passing the buck to each other to some degree.
The Nitrates Directive had originally been signed into law back in December 2006. At the time, farmers were outraged at the introduction of limits to slurry, farmyard manure and fertiliser.
Stocking rate intensity was also curtailed.
A closed period for slurry spreading was introduced, with increased slurry storage requirements.
The Farm Waste Management Scheme was introduced to help farmers build the required storage and was massively oversubscribed (it was one of the schemes affected by the 2008 emergency budget discussed last week).
While farmers never fully accepted calendar farming, they gradually adjusted to the realities of the Nitrates Directive.
Four successive directives brought changes, some relaxing rules a little (fertiliser limits for high-yielding crops, for instance) and some tightening rules (dirty water spreading rules and farm roadway cambers).
Farmers continued to protest, demanding lead-in time at the very least to any changed arrangements. Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius visited Ireland (on 23 November, the day of the Dublin riots), although he never left Dublin or saw a farm.
Farmers highlighted that they had completed a breeding programme for 2025 before the changes were announced, and now were faced with selling in-calf animals to comply.
The commissioner expressed sympathy, but nothing changed.
The changes duly came in for much of the country’s dairy heartland last January. The focus now is very much on protecting the 220kg/250kg regime in the next renewal of the derogation in 2026 — now only a year away.
On 23 June 2016, Irish farmers went to bed planning a day cutting silage, tedding hay or spraying crops in the beautiful mid-summer weather.
The following morning, they woke to discover the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union in what was a shock referendum result. Brexit, which until now had been little more than a niggling concern, was suddenly a grim reality for Irish farmers.
The Irish agri-food sector still had a massive dependency on the UK for our food exports.
Northern Ireland was now leaving the EU, despite the people of Northern Ireland having voted to remain in the EU, as had the people of Scotland.
The weight of support in England and to a lesser extent Wales had tipped the scales overall to a 52% to 48% outcome.
Immediately, there were concerns about how to best maintain the cross-border movement of livestock and agricultural goods between the two jurisdictions on the island. Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed described it as “an existential crisis” for Irish farming.
David Cameron, the UK prime minister who had called the referendum to appease the right-wing of the Conservative Party he led, promptly resigned.
Teresa May, who had herself opposed Brexit, took over. She tried to legislate for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
However, any proposals negotiated with the EU foundered as hardline pro-Brexit rebels within the Conservative Party blocked her every proposal as a sellout.
The option of remaining in the customs union, which would effectively have meant a continuation of common standards, was ruled out by May’s successor Boris Johnson.
A “hard Brexit” was now the agenda, with a complete severance not only politically, but also economically, with Britain leaving the customs union, which contains some non-EU members like Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Turkey (ironically, the prospect of Turkey joining the European Union was one of the elements of the Leave campaign).
It took until 2020 for Brexit to formally happen. All through the negotiations, fears expressed in some quarters that the “Irish question” would be pushed to one side were dispelled by the stance of the EU.
The European Commission’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier kept issues relating to Ireland’s interests firmly on the table at all times.
This may have been aided by Barnier having previously been the French Minister for Agriculture, who had a key role as chair of the ministerial council in the second half of 2008 both in the “health check” that saw the end of dairy quotas, and the World Trade Organisation talks in Geneva.
With the involvement of the Irish Government, led by Enda Kenny and then Leo Varadkar, a “backstop” protocol agreement that minimised north-south disruption on the island of Ireland was agreed. This caused unhappiness in Northern Ireland, as it created movement protocols between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
DUP leader Arlene Foster said, “the Northern Ireland Protocol has not worked, cannot work and in light of our proposals to the government, needs to be replaced.”
A number of adjustments have been made since then, addressing Unionist concerns. It’s fair to say that Ireland, and Irish farming, north and south, while working effectively with the arrangements that now exist, will forever live in the shadow of the Brexit vote.
‘We’re not gonna take it’: the Beef Plan protests gained momentum
In late 2018, a new farm organisation emerged; the Beef Plan Movement.
Formed by beef farmers Eamon Corley, a former member of the IFA’s livestock committee, and Hugh Doyle, another former IFA member, they held meetings across the country in mart rings, pledging to get tough with beef processors on behalf of cattle farmers.
Huge attendance endorsed the “get-tough” talk from the top table and the floor.
An 86-point plan was produced, which blurred rather than sharpened the fledgling movement’s focus. But using social media, particularly WhatsApp groups, the Beef Plan Movement continued to grow.
Having talked the talk through the spring, as cattle prices struggled to emerge from a post-Brexit slump, they moved to direct action on the August bank holiday weekend.
Farmers stood outside factory gates, preventing traffic from moving in or out. In contrast to the IFA action two decades before, which took place in cold January weather, long summer nights were spent leaning on round bales in shirt sleeves.
Stories of lorries of foreign meat being seen entering and exiting gained legs, and tempers soured. Bord Bia was distrusted by protestors, as was Government.
After a month, processors began serving injunctions on individual farmers, including many Beef Plan leaders. As cases progressed to the High Court, the IFA stepped in with legal support for farmer defendants.
The Beef Plan withdrew from formal leadership of the protests, which were now taken over by groups calling themselves Independent Farmers and Individual Farmers.
While this sounds like an echo of the events of the 2000 blockade, there was no overall guiding hand in charge nationally.
After seven weeks, following talks convened by Minister Michael Creed, the protests were stood down with the establishment of the Beef Stakeholders Forum with price transparency as one of the key promises.
The Beef Plan split acrimoniously, with the Irish Beef and Lamb Organisation being formed alongside the Beef Plan. Both sides formed producer groups that are now the most tangible presence of the original Beef Plan leadership.
Meanwhile, the more militant Independent Farmers and Individual Farmers brought their grievances to Dublin in November, causing traffic chaos but gaining little tangible outcome.
While the stakeholders forum has now faded into obscurity, the Bord Bia beef market tracker is a useful tool that emerged from its work and is certainly something tangible from that chaotic autumn.
Swing low: COVID-19 lockdown/Golfgate
St Patrick’s week 2020 saw Ireland go into full lockdown as the COVID-19 virus swept into the country.
In an attempt to slow the progress of the disease, movement was restricted to within 5km of home, apart from essential tasks. People worked from home, and Zoom and Teams apps became essential.
Former European Commissioner Phil Hogan during day one of the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor Golf Club in Adare, Limerick. \ Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Farming was also essential, the Government decided, with meat processing plants remaining open, and marts switching to online sales. Deliveries of feed, fertiliser, fuel, and milk collections continued to operate.
Meanwhile, a new Government was slowly forming. Micheál Martin was appointed Taoiseach in June, appointing Barry Cowen as Minister for Agriculture. The Offaly man became immediately embroiled in controversy regarding a historical drink driving incident and was sacked after only three weeks.
Mayo-man Dara Calleary succeeded him, but only three weeks later, he too was gone. Calleary attended a function at the Station House Hotel in Clifden, Co Galway, following a golf tournament organised by the Oireachtas golf committee.
The function was alleged to have breached the step-down lockdown rules; exceeding the 50-person maximum for such an event. Calleary didn’t even play golf, he attended the function to pay tribute to the late Mark Killilea, a founding member of the society, who had passed away the previous December. Calleary resigned from the role.
That wasn’t the end of the story. Ireland’s European Commissioner Phil Hogan, in the pivotal trade portfolio as Brexit negotiations reached a critical juncture, had also attended the function. He apologised but showed no intention of resigning.
However, the drip effect of other missteps, including the extent of his movements around the country and using his phone while driving saw pressure mount, and he eventually fell on his sword too.
Charlie McConalogue became the fourth agriculture minister in as many months (five if you count Micheál Martin’s brief stint in a caretaker capacity), while Mairead McGuinness eventually became Ireland’s commissioner.
A court case was taken against hoteliers James and John Sweeney, and Oireachtas Golf Society leaders Donie Cassidy and Noel Grealish. All four were acquitted, with Judge Mary Fahy finding that the function for 81 people had two distinct areas catering for two groups.
Now, four years on, Dara Calleary is widely tipped to be a Minister in the Government that will have been announced by the time you read this, while Noel Grealish is set to be a “super-junior” Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture.
Cuts like a knife: the derogation cut
The summer of 2023 was ambling along for dairy farmers when thunder struck. While prices had fallen back sharply from the highs of 2022, costs were falling too.
But then, on 30 June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dropped a bombshell. It published a map showing much of the country in red, meaning that nitrate levels in rivers in those areas were rising.
An IFA protest at the Department of Agriculture over the nitrates derogation. \ Philip Doyle
It quickly emerged that under the terms of the nitrates derogation obtained in March of 2022, these areas would see the maximum stocking rate fall from 250kg/ha of organic nitrogen to 220kg/ha.
Disbelief quickly turned to outrage.
The farm organisations said they had been kept in the dark by the Government that this was a possibility.
Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue pledged to work to minimise the impact of this hand grenade, as farmers protested in Kilkenny and Bandon.
As summer turned to autumn, the IFA made its presence felt outside the Fianna Fáil think-in at Horse and Jockey, and Fine Gael’s one in Limerick. The two government parties seemed to be passing the buck to each other to some degree.
The Nitrates Directive had originally been signed into law back in December 2006. At the time, farmers were outraged at the introduction of limits to slurry, farmyard manure and fertiliser.
Stocking rate intensity was also curtailed.
A closed period for slurry spreading was introduced, with increased slurry storage requirements.
The Farm Waste Management Scheme was introduced to help farmers build the required storage and was massively oversubscribed (it was one of the schemes affected by the 2008 emergency budget discussed last week).
While farmers never fully accepted calendar farming, they gradually adjusted to the realities of the Nitrates Directive.
Four successive directives brought changes, some relaxing rules a little (fertiliser limits for high-yielding crops, for instance) and some tightening rules (dirty water spreading rules and farm roadway cambers).
Farmers continued to protest, demanding lead-in time at the very least to any changed arrangements. Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius visited Ireland (on 23 November, the day of the Dublin riots), although he never left Dublin or saw a farm.
Farmers highlighted that they had completed a breeding programme for 2025 before the changes were announced, and now were faced with selling in-calf animals to comply.
The commissioner expressed sympathy, but nothing changed.
The changes duly came in for much of the country’s dairy heartland last January. The focus now is very much on protecting the 220kg/250kg regime in the next renewal of the derogation in 2026 — now only a year away.
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