Voting in the IFA elections began on Monday. About 80 of the IFA’s 940 branches held AGMs, as Martin Stapleton and Francie Gorman debated the issues one last time on the Irish Farmers Journal’s live webinar.

For the first time, members have the option of returning their ballot paper by post.

As a result, attendance at branch AGMs, which until now were the only place where members could vote, are no longer a clear guide as to voting turnout.

It is generally expected that overall numbers voting will be up, but that numbers at branch AGMs will be smaller than in other election years. Monday’s turnout would seem to bear that out.

Across the country, reports were of lower branch AGM attendance over the first couple of nights.

Monaghan and Cavan branches in particular had low attendances. Ballinscarthy in Cork saw the attendance up on 2019, from 24 to 30, with the hot topic being the nitrates derogation changes. Athy in Kildare saw 45 attend. Ninety-three voted four years ago, but Kildare man Brian Rushe was on the ballot.

The IFA has reported an encouraging flow of returning ballot papers so far.

Ballots must be cast at the local branch meeting, or returned by post by 11 December.

The Moore IFA branch in Roscommon issued a statement stating that while it held its AGM on Monday night, misgivings over the IFA’s position on the impending new ICBF valuations has led the branch to unanimously defer voting “pending a clear clarification from IFA outlining it’s position”.

Members are also “extremely unhappy” with the SCEP programme, the statement said. The branch will meet again in two weeks time, and depending on the response they get, may ask members to consider resigning from IFA.

Debate

At Monday’s debate, Irish Farmers Journal editor Jack Kennedy put Francie Gorman and Martin Stapleton through their paces on a wide range of issues.

Battle-hardened after a raft of debates around the country over the last month, the exchanges were tight, with neither man giving any hostages to fortune.

The genuine regard the two men have for each other came through on the night.

Despite the gruelling series of one-on-one debates they have come through, there was little of the narkiness that was evident at times between the three candidates in 2019.

Perhaps that also meant there was less bite in the exchanges.

As to who won, there was no clear knockout. It will be left to the judges’ scorecards to decide the outcome, and they won’t be revealed until 12 December at the count.