So Commissioner Wojciechowski came to see the IFA on Monday. While his time was relatively short, there was a full exchange of views.

The Commissioner thanked Irish farming for its contribution in securing food supply, and made all kinds of reassuring noises around the need to improve food security.

Underneath that, however, his own personal vision of farming continued to sound remarkably naive. He spoke of visiting farms in the Baltic States, and cited the example of a farmer on 15ha, supplying organic vegetables for local sale and consumption.

That simply won’t work in Ireland, a country that exports 90% of its food.

The European Commission’s and the European Parliament’s efforts to provide equity and transparency in the food chain have fallen way short of what is needed

And it ignores the fact that vegetable producers in Ireland, who do supply almost exclusively for the domestic market are quickly going to the wall, as retailers ignore suppliers’ calls for price increases that reflect the reality of a dramatically altered cost base.

Indeed, the European Commission’s and the European Parliament’s efforts to provide equity and transparency in the food chain have fallen way short of what is needed.

The current stress-test of the entire food system has proven that.

In fairness to the Commissioner, he did say he is open to change, and he promised to consider proposals to protect producers. However, some of the proposals he heard from the IFA’s front bench sounded reheated.

The livestock chair called for €300/cow, the sheep chair €30/ewe.

These proposals preceded last year’s CAP debate, but sat uneasily through it.

When the likes of Derek Deane and Flor McCarthy pushed for coupled payments on such a scale within the reformed CAP, it didn’t gain much traction within the livestock or sheep committees.

Minister McConalogue duly ignored coupled payments when formulating the national strategy. And, of course, the Commission will ignore anything that doesn’t come through the national strategy. The IFA may need a new angle to get supports for drystock farmers while the door is still open.