The drive to establish a new organisation to bolster the public perception of Irish agriculture has hit a bit of a bump in the road, The Dealer understands.

Ag sector insiders say there is “huge momentum” behind the initiative – which is very dramatically termed Project Connect – even though it is still unclear how the new entity will work with existing players in the ag/food space such as the National Dairy Council (NDC).

Many dairy farmers currently pay around 0.07c/l to fund the NDC, and the last thing they want to see are two organisations essentially doing the same job.

Duplication and efficiency rarely go hand in hand.

It will be interesting to see how this circle is squared.