Dear Editor

Farming is a narrow concept between food, tillage and dairy. But farmers are essentially sole trading business people who can diversify and take farming far beyond its very narrow concept.

Things however are beginning to change with some farmers diversifying into logistics and selling off their land for houses and housing estates.

There is a bit of a wake-up call among the farming community in Ireland that farming must evolve.

Farmers are having a vital role to play in the production of biofuel crops in some countries.

Tax breaks

Land can be used for anything and our farmers have most of it.

A Farming Bill should be brought forward every year giving farmers tax breaks and other incentives for attempting to do more than just dairy and tillage.

Some farmers have even tried driving ranges for golf and tea rooms and trails on their land. That is the spirit of enterprise plus the added quality of it being indigenous business.

Already we can see the development of farmer markets, so things are going beyond traditional thinking to some limited degree.

Farming and farmers have lived in a very narrow concept of business for far too long and need to see themselves as business people in the broad sense.

Farmers could employ hundreds of people with solid jobs in a whole range of businesses with the full utilisation of their land, and in any part of the country beyond major cities.

Farmers could become the new captains of industry in this country and would be far more reliable than foreign direct investment which is very precarious.

Goldfish bowl

Farmers could be the future of this country rather than the past.

Yes, we should be pro-farmer but we need to direct them to think beyond the goldfish bowl which many unfortunately live in.

Traditional farming is very hard work and can be very dangerous and lethal, but there are easier ways to make a livelihood.

Farmers can do dairy and tillage on the side while still branching out into new areas of business.