Over the last week we have been hearing much about succession, or should I say retirement for farmers.

Anyone who has listened to any Macra president over the last few decades will have heard about succession, and yet what we look for appears to be falling on deaf ears.

At the Tullamore show, Minister McConalogue announced the setting up of a new commission on generational renewal in farming. Macra welcomed this, as indeed we welcome any new initiative.

We then hear that the minister stated to the Irish Farmers Journal that a farm retirement scheme could be funded through the next CAP stating “I want the next CAP to be very much centred around how we bring young people into farming”.

Call to action

Here is where the wheels start to come off the wagon. Macra has been calling for action - at the start of the summer we lobbied over 60 members of the houses of the Oireachtas on what we saw as a possible solution to the issue of generational renewal, we have met the minister and the Taoiseach on this matter on several occasions, we actually felt that we were making progress on this issue.

To hear that it is the hope of the minister that the next CAP will be centred around bringing in young people in to farming is beyond belief.

In the last CAP, there was not one extra euro devoted to any new measures to support generational renewal, now we are to wait another three years, to perhaps see the same?

All farming organisations are looking for a succession (in one form or another) scheme. However, only one organisation is coming at this from the perspective of a young farmer. We appreciate that other organisations have young members. However, the focus of Macra is on young people, so I would argue with anyone that perhaps, we have just a bit more skin in the game than most.

Perhaps, Macra, as an organisation, is too polite.

We, apparently, don’t get angry and as such we have been sidelined in the area of succession.

Blueprint

Waiting another three years for a scheme that may or may not happen, when we have a blueprint for a scheme that would increase the number of young farmers by 16% in a matter of months is madness.

Expecting change to magically appear and for the average age of our farmers to decrease using the current methodology is beyond belief.

I’ll leave you with these last words which have often been attributed to Albert Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.