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Farmers in Tipperary, Laois and Wexford have donated hundreds of bales of silage and hay to farmers in the west who are experiencing an ongoing fodder shortage.
The donations are part of an IFA county twinning project that has matched counties with surplus fodder to those who are short.
Tipperary North IFA chair Tim Cullinan told the Irish Farmers Journal that farmers in his area have pledged to send 300 bales of silage to Sligo, with 150 already dispatched.
“We put a load up to Sligo there before Christmas. There’s been an excellent response to it and we’re hoping to move another,” he said.
“But what we’re doing is a fire brigade job. In my view the farmers need assistance from the Department as well.”
A December Teagasc survey showed that up to 85% of farmers in the northwest are short of fodder.
Concern is growing that some farmers in west Clare and Kerry could also be badly affected by a shortage of fodder.
Laois and south Tipperary have donated 100 bales to farmers in west Clare, with Willie Hanrahan, chair of Clare IFA, praising them for their generosity.
“We have pockets of the county that are in severe difficulty,” Hanrahan said.
“We’ve secured a nice bit of fodder but it could cost €15 to €20 to transport a bale from Laois and we’re hoping to get the transport costs covered.”
The deputy president of the ICMSA, Lorcan McCabe, has called on the Department of Agriculture to step in and assist farmers.
Wasted
“A month has passed since the first Fodder Action Group meeting in Sligo in December and it’s been completely wasted in my opinion,” McCabe said.
“But we would be very hopeful that there would be some sort of fodder subsidy put in place and the biggest thing is that Minister Creed has acknowledged that there is a problem.”
IFA president Joe Healy has requested that a second Fodder Action Group meeting take place immediately, and, in a letter addressed to the Minister for Agriculture seen by the Irish Farmers Journal, wrote: “We are now formally asking the Department to provide a transport scheme to assist with the cost of transporting this fodder to the counties affected.”
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