Some people say that a political U-turn is a sign of weakness. It shows that a politician hasn’t the courage to follow through on something they propose. Sometimes that is true.
However, there are situations where the opposite is true; where a politician reversing a decision they have made is a sign of political courage and wisdom.
It takes guts to admit that you’ve got it wrong, and courage to acknowledge that your judgment has, in one particular instance, been misplaced.
I hold Charlie McConalogue in high esteem. I think that as Minister for Agriculture he has been hard-working, accessible, good-natured and well-intentioned.
The events of the last week have not changed that opinion.
However, he is now facing a defining moment in his political career. I think he has made a misstep in announcing that he intends to seek approval from the European Commission to withdraw the Straw Incorporation Measure for 2024.
In fact, I’m sure of it. And I think the best course of action now is for the minister to admit that this was a misstep, to say that he is abandoning his plan, and that he will sit down with tillage farmers to discuss flexibilities in the scheme to help alleviate a potential fodder and feed shortage, and a shortage of bedding.
Evidence
Admittedly, I say that as a tillage farmer with the maximum 40ha applied for in the scheme, but I’m doing my best to be objective here. The evidence stacks up pretty strongly in my favour.
Firstly, both Ministers of State in Charlie McConalogue’s own department have stated their opposition to his initiative. This is unprecedented.
I think the Department of Agriculture is the only government department that has had all three coalition parties represented within it at ministerial level right through the lifetime of this Government.
There have been a lot of difficult moments in that time - CAP reform, with divisive decisions around the level of Eco-schemes, CRISS and convergence, a sectoral target for carbon reduction, the explosion in input prices in 2022, the nitrates derogation reduction, last year’s disaster harvest and the current incomes crisis across almost all sectors.
What has raised eyebrows is that the IFA and the IGG, who have often been at loggerheads, are working together on this issue. It’s another sign the minister has made a miscalculation.
Through all of that, Martin Heydon and Pippa Hackett have been in step with Charlie McConalogue, and not just publicly. There are many instances of politicians being publicly supportive or silent, but privately briefing journalists to the contrary.
That has not happened among McConalogue, Hackett and Heydon. I would imagine that has sometimes been especially challenging for Pippa Hackett, coming as she does from the Green Party. That makes the public opposition to the removal of the SIM from both Ministers of State more notable.
The IFA’s opposition is also notable. As Ireland’s “catch-all” farm organisation, they not only represent tillage farmers, but also dairy and drystock farmers. Indeed, 90% of their members are livestock rather than tillage farmers. Yet they are full square in their opposition to this measure.
The Irish Grain Growers (IGGG) is also opposed, but that comes as no surprise. What has raised eyebrows is that the IFA and the IGG, which have often been at loggerheads, are working together on this issue. It’s another sign the minister has made a miscalculation.
Thawing of relations
It’s also an indication of how things function in this little country of ours. The IGG were founded in Laois, and their current chair Bobby Miller is a Laois farmer. The IFA grain chair Kieran McEvoy is also a Laois farmer, as is the IFA president Francie Gorman. All three men would know each other as farmers and going back to Macra days. The thawing of relations is partly political, and partly personal.
We’ve seen a wide range of politicians, from Government parties, opposition parties and prominent independents, all opposed to the minister’s proposal. Some of them come from parts of the country that will be net beneficiaries from the removal of the scheme and the switch from a potential straw shortage to a probable excess of straw. And yet they are opposed.
Dangerous precedent
The reason is simple. If you can pull one scheme, way after applications have been made and closer to the execution of the measures required under the scheme, you undermine the integrity of all schemes. Leaving aside any concerns or claims being made by tillage farmers who have applied for the scheme, you have to confront the wider implication of what the minister is proposing to do.
For that reason, I think the IFA should appeal to the European Commission to reject the minister’s request to suspend the scheme. I also think that all the farm organisations, including the INHFA and the ICSA which have welcomed the move, should join that action, for the protection of the relationship between farmers, the Department of Agriculture, and the dozens of schemes in place.
People outside might wonder why farming is so dependant on schemes in the first place. Why can’t food production wash its face? It’s a legitimate question. The answer, essentially, is that farmers must compete in a globalised environment, with first-world production costs, production standards, and environmental constraints, but must accept a price for their product set by regions of the world which operate outside that high-cost environment. And yet the food produced in the developed world is essential to ensure we have enough food for eight billion people. And so, we have supports to keep first-world farming viable.
The range of schemes currently in place are mostly focussed on helping farmers to transition to more environmentally sustainable practices. The Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) is just such a scheme. Farmers return the straw crop to the soil, with the combine chopping the straw and the farmer then incorporating it through cultivation. Sometimes this action is accompanied by the planting of a cover crop. Sometimes slurry is mixed in to help break down the straw.
The minister could kill the scheme he birthed
In an interview on RTE radio’s Countrywide on Saturday morning, the minister highlighted that he introduced the scheme in the first place, and that last year he put a €50m budget in place for it for the next five years.
Unfortunately, he will kill this scheme forever if he persists in pulling it this year. How could any farmer ever apply for it again with any confidence or trust?
He also highlighted that he takes his responsibilities in relation to ensuring that livestock farmers don’t suffer from feed shortages very seriously, and in that regard, he set up the National Fodder and Feed Security committee. Again, this is true, but again it actually weakens his argument that his decision is justified and measured. Because the National Fodder and Feed security committee met last week, only 10 days before his bombshell decision, and this drastic measure was not proposed by the minister or by any other stakeholder present. Surely this was the correct forum to flag the prospect of a scheme’s withdrawal among stakeholders.
If he had, he would have found that the IFA and the Grain Growers were utterly opposed, that the ICMSA didn’t have it as a priority. Perhaps the ICSA and the INHFA would have welcomed it, but perhaps hearing the reasoned opposition from other groups would have reconsidered.
Loyalty cuts both ways
In 2018, when we had a fodder shortage, the then Minister Michael Creed introduced an incentive for tillage farmers to plant forage crops to alleviate the feed shortages created by that glorious summer’s long drought. Tillage farmers were not found wanting; they planted crops, partly to make money, but also in part to help in the war effort on behalf of their neighbours, who owned livestock.
In the event, we had a remarkably good back end, and the fodder crisis was alleviated by an extended grazing season, a short winter and high-yielding, decent quality late silage. Some tillage farmers I know were left with forage crops unsold. They didn’t lose out, the financial support covered planting costs, and the crops were incorporated into the ground, ironically building farmer confidence in and awareness of both cover crops and the related soil improvement measure that straw incorporation is. Some farmers who had deals done to sell the cover crop saw them collapse as the fodder shortage lessened.
We saw a parallel occurrence this week, as the straw market collapsed in the wake of the minister’s announcement. I reported in this week’s paper that Monday night’s IFA grain meeting in Kildare heard the grain committee vice chair John Murphy speak of straw composters - almost entirely for the mushroom sector - willing to pay up to €60/8x4x4 bale for straw. And that price is on the ledge - meaning the purchaser is responsible for the baling of the straw. The word was they would also be willing to accept oaten and rye straw; normally composters are only interested in wheaten straw. What I’m now hearing is that straw agents for composters have dropped their prices to €35/bale.
The embattled minister has been urging livestock farmers to contact tillage farmers to order straw in the wake of his freeing up the market by his announcement. The opposite is happening. Tillage farmers are contacting me to say straw deals long done have been cancelled since Wednesday, in the expectation that the balance of power has completely switched.
It’s true to say that we have had two years in the last decade where there was a genuine fodder shortage - 2014 and 2018. But it’s also true that there have been three years in the last decade, 2019 being the most striking example, where baled straw has rotted in the fields. In May-June 2019, farmers moved to secure straw for the following winter, not wanting the stress of the previous year. However, as the year unfolded, there was an abundance of straw. Deals were cancelled or reneged upon all over the country, and a lot of straw was sold for less than its value if reincorporated into the soil. I personally had full sheds and straw rotting in the fields and eventually sold it for a pittance in February-March.
This might surprise farmers in the midlands, Galway or Donegal, where there are more livestock than grain fields. We are in a corner of the country, with the largest area under tillage crops. Wexford is the last place to sell its straw in a surplus year, as the transport costs to the west and to Northern Ireland are higher. It’s no surprise, then, that Wexford is where there has been highest uptake of the SIM. We’ve been burned too often. Not only have I not had straw collected when ordered, I’ve also had straw collected but not paid for. I’ve had cheques bounce and promises broken.
And here’s the thing - straw is not fodder. Straw is grand for feeding dry cows, or as part of a total mixed ration, but it doesn’t have the nutritional value of a forage crop. It is used for bedding, but the demand for bedding has fallen in recent years, as slats and mats replaced bedding on concrete floors. So, the minister has not resolved the fodder crisis in any way by his decision.
SIM influenced late planting
I cheered last Saturday when Ciaran Frawley dropped a goal to ensure Ireland’s rugby team beat world champions South Africa in their own backyard. Back on May, Frawley narrowly missed a drop goal attempt that would have seen Leinster snatch a last-gasp European Rugby Cup win over Toulouse - they subsequently lost in extra-time. I say narrowly, but I’ve never seen his attempt, as I was listening to that match on radio. I was planting oats, on 24 May, the latest I have ever sown a crop of cereals. It’s actually late for sowing maize, which was happening over the ditch. As it happens, my oats crops look better than the maize. They are a full crop, lush green. The problem is they are a month or more behind any normal schedule, and may run out of time. I don’t know if grain will ever form, and if it does if I will have weather to harvest it in late September.
The thing is, when I planted that crop, one of the motivating factors was the knowledge that I would receive the SIM for the 12 ha involved. The minister has taken that money off the table this week. Even if everything falls in my favour, I doubt anyone will want oaten straw on 1 October. I’ll probably be chopping it anyway.
Wexford IFA chair Jer O'Mahony demonstrates the complexity of the dozens of schemes farmers participate in, as he presents Wexford County Council with a set of application forms and terms and conditions
A second issue is that I, like most tillage farmers, am looking at a second very difficult year financially. I will probably be sitting down with a relationship manager looking for short-to medium-term facilities when this harvest is over, particularly if grain prices remain where they are. And when I do, my inventory won’t include 40 ha of straw in the SIM. Instead, there will be hundreds of straw bales. They may be sold; they almost certainly won’t be paid for. And instead of the bank representative putting thousands to the credit side of my account, as payment would be guaranteed, there will just be some question marks. That affects my ability to draw down essential funding, and affects my ability to repay whatever I borrow.
Greater good
Of course, it’s not about me, I only say this to illustrate the consequences of the minister’s decision. It’s about many things, but primarily it’s about the integrity of the whole system of schemes that underpins Irish farming. A system so complex that the application forms and terms and conditions involved form a stack that is two feet high, as graphically shown by Wexford IFA who printed them out earlier this year.
To quote Kieran McEvoy, the IFA grain chair, speaking last Monday at that Kildare meeting, “ IFA are opposed to suggestions that farmers be paid for straw incorporation, but allowed to bale the crop. It might alleviate a short-term issue, but it would undermine the integrity of the scheme, and risk its future”.
Kieran was 100% correct. I hope the minister recognises this, and takes the difficult but correct step- to reverse his decision. McEvoy followed up by calling on grain farmers to engage with their neighbours and supply straw if they could. He reminded them that it has always been possible to withdraw a field or fields from the SIM right up until the day of harvesting, and to bale instead of chopping. As long as livestock farmers are willing to pay a fair price for straw, there will be no shortage of it.
Show your strength minister, do the right thing. There's a ladder and a shovel available to you right now. No damage has been done as yet, and you will only go up in my estimation if you correct your course. I suspect that sentiment will be widely held.
Some people say that a political U-turn is a sign of weakness. It shows that a politician hasn’t the courage to follow through on something they propose. Sometimes that is true.
However, there are situations where the opposite is true; where a politician reversing a decision they have made is a sign of political courage and wisdom.
It takes guts to admit that you’ve got it wrong, and courage to acknowledge that your judgment has, in one particular instance, been misplaced.
I hold Charlie McConalogue in high esteem. I think that as Minister for Agriculture he has been hard-working, accessible, good-natured and well-intentioned.
The events of the last week have not changed that opinion.
However, he is now facing a defining moment in his political career. I think he has made a misstep in announcing that he intends to seek approval from the European Commission to withdraw the Straw Incorporation Measure for 2024.
In fact, I’m sure of it. And I think the best course of action now is for the minister to admit that this was a misstep, to say that he is abandoning his plan, and that he will sit down with tillage farmers to discuss flexibilities in the scheme to help alleviate a potential fodder and feed shortage, and a shortage of bedding.
Evidence
Admittedly, I say that as a tillage farmer with the maximum 40ha applied for in the scheme, but I’m doing my best to be objective here. The evidence stacks up pretty strongly in my favour.
Firstly, both Ministers of State in Charlie McConalogue’s own department have stated their opposition to his initiative. This is unprecedented.
I think the Department of Agriculture is the only government department that has had all three coalition parties represented within it at ministerial level right through the lifetime of this Government.
There have been a lot of difficult moments in that time - CAP reform, with divisive decisions around the level of Eco-schemes, CRISS and convergence, a sectoral target for carbon reduction, the explosion in input prices in 2022, the nitrates derogation reduction, last year’s disaster harvest and the current incomes crisis across almost all sectors.
What has raised eyebrows is that the IFA and the IGG, who have often been at loggerheads, are working together on this issue. It’s another sign the minister has made a miscalculation.
Through all of that, Martin Heydon and Pippa Hackett have been in step with Charlie McConalogue, and not just publicly. There are many instances of politicians being publicly supportive or silent, but privately briefing journalists to the contrary.
That has not happened among McConalogue, Hackett and Heydon. I would imagine that has sometimes been especially challenging for Pippa Hackett, coming as she does from the Green Party. That makes the public opposition to the removal of the SIM from both Ministers of State more notable.
The IFA’s opposition is also notable. As Ireland’s “catch-all” farm organisation, they not only represent tillage farmers, but also dairy and drystock farmers. Indeed, 90% of their members are livestock rather than tillage farmers. Yet they are full square in their opposition to this measure.
The Irish Grain Growers (IGGG) is also opposed, but that comes as no surprise. What has raised eyebrows is that the IFA and the IGG, which have often been at loggerheads, are working together on this issue. It’s another sign the minister has made a miscalculation.
Thawing of relations
It’s also an indication of how things function in this little country of ours. The IGG were founded in Laois, and their current chair Bobby Miller is a Laois farmer. The IFA grain chair Kieran McEvoy is also a Laois farmer, as is the IFA president Francie Gorman. All three men would know each other as farmers and going back to Macra days. The thawing of relations is partly political, and partly personal.
We’ve seen a wide range of politicians, from Government parties, opposition parties and prominent independents, all opposed to the minister’s proposal. Some of them come from parts of the country that will be net beneficiaries from the removal of the scheme and the switch from a potential straw shortage to a probable excess of straw. And yet they are opposed.
Dangerous precedent
The reason is simple. If you can pull one scheme, way after applications have been made and closer to the execution of the measures required under the scheme, you undermine the integrity of all schemes. Leaving aside any concerns or claims being made by tillage farmers who have applied for the scheme, you have to confront the wider implication of what the minister is proposing to do.
For that reason, I think the IFA should appeal to the European Commission to reject the minister’s request to suspend the scheme. I also think that all the farm organisations, including the INHFA and the ICSA which have welcomed the move, should join that action, for the protection of the relationship between farmers, the Department of Agriculture, and the dozens of schemes in place.
People outside might wonder why farming is so dependant on schemes in the first place. Why can’t food production wash its face? It’s a legitimate question. The answer, essentially, is that farmers must compete in a globalised environment, with first-world production costs, production standards, and environmental constraints, but must accept a price for their product set by regions of the world which operate outside that high-cost environment. And yet the food produced in the developed world is essential to ensure we have enough food for eight billion people. And so, we have supports to keep first-world farming viable.
The range of schemes currently in place are mostly focussed on helping farmers to transition to more environmentally sustainable practices. The Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) is just such a scheme. Farmers return the straw crop to the soil, with the combine chopping the straw and the farmer then incorporating it through cultivation. Sometimes this action is accompanied by the planting of a cover crop. Sometimes slurry is mixed in to help break down the straw.
The minister could kill the scheme he birthed
In an interview on RTE radio’s Countrywide on Saturday morning, the minister highlighted that he introduced the scheme in the first place, and that last year he put a €50m budget in place for it for the next five years.
Unfortunately, he will kill this scheme forever if he persists in pulling it this year. How could any farmer ever apply for it again with any confidence or trust?
He also highlighted that he takes his responsibilities in relation to ensuring that livestock farmers don’t suffer from feed shortages very seriously, and in that regard, he set up the National Fodder and Feed Security committee. Again, this is true, but again it actually weakens his argument that his decision is justified and measured. Because the National Fodder and Feed security committee met last week, only 10 days before his bombshell decision, and this drastic measure was not proposed by the minister or by any other stakeholder present. Surely this was the correct forum to flag the prospect of a scheme’s withdrawal among stakeholders.
If he had, he would have found that the IFA and the Grain Growers were utterly opposed, that the ICMSA didn’t have it as a priority. Perhaps the ICSA and the INHFA would have welcomed it, but perhaps hearing the reasoned opposition from other groups would have reconsidered.
Loyalty cuts both ways
In 2018, when we had a fodder shortage, the then Minister Michael Creed introduced an incentive for tillage farmers to plant forage crops to alleviate the feed shortages created by that glorious summer’s long drought. Tillage farmers were not found wanting; they planted crops, partly to make money, but also in part to help in the war effort on behalf of their neighbours, who owned livestock.
In the event, we had a remarkably good back end, and the fodder crisis was alleviated by an extended grazing season, a short winter and high-yielding, decent quality late silage. Some tillage farmers I know were left with forage crops unsold. They didn’t lose out, the financial support covered planting costs, and the crops were incorporated into the ground, ironically building farmer confidence in and awareness of both cover crops and the related soil improvement measure that straw incorporation is. Some farmers who had deals done to sell the cover crop saw them collapse as the fodder shortage lessened.
We saw a parallel occurrence this week, as the straw market collapsed in the wake of the minister’s announcement. I reported in this week’s paper that Monday night’s IFA grain meeting in Kildare heard the grain committee vice chair John Murphy speak of straw composters - almost entirely for the mushroom sector - willing to pay up to €60/8x4x4 bale for straw. And that price is on the ledge - meaning the purchaser is responsible for the baling of the straw. The word was they would also be willing to accept oaten and rye straw; normally composters are only interested in wheaten straw. What I’m now hearing is that straw agents for composters have dropped their prices to €35/bale.
The embattled minister has been urging livestock farmers to contact tillage farmers to order straw in the wake of his freeing up the market by his announcement. The opposite is happening. Tillage farmers are contacting me to say straw deals long done have been cancelled since Wednesday, in the expectation that the balance of power has completely switched.
It’s true to say that we have had two years in the last decade where there was a genuine fodder shortage - 2014 and 2018. But it’s also true that there have been three years in the last decade, 2019 being the most striking example, where baled straw has rotted in the fields. In May-June 2019, farmers moved to secure straw for the following winter, not wanting the stress of the previous year. However, as the year unfolded, there was an abundance of straw. Deals were cancelled or reneged upon all over the country, and a lot of straw was sold for less than its value if reincorporated into the soil. I personally had full sheds and straw rotting in the fields and eventually sold it for a pittance in February-March.
This might surprise farmers in the midlands, Galway or Donegal, where there are more livestock than grain fields. We are in a corner of the country, with the largest area under tillage crops. Wexford is the last place to sell its straw in a surplus year, as the transport costs to the west and to Northern Ireland are higher. It’s no surprise, then, that Wexford is where there has been highest uptake of the SIM. We’ve been burned too often. Not only have I not had straw collected when ordered, I’ve also had straw collected but not paid for. I’ve had cheques bounce and promises broken.
And here’s the thing - straw is not fodder. Straw is grand for feeding dry cows, or as part of a total mixed ration, but it doesn’t have the nutritional value of a forage crop. It is used for bedding, but the demand for bedding has fallen in recent years, as slats and mats replaced bedding on concrete floors. So, the minister has not resolved the fodder crisis in any way by his decision.
SIM influenced late planting
I cheered last Saturday when Ciaran Frawley dropped a goal to ensure Ireland’s rugby team beat world champions South Africa in their own backyard. Back on May, Frawley narrowly missed a drop goal attempt that would have seen Leinster snatch a last-gasp European Rugby Cup win over Toulouse - they subsequently lost in extra-time. I say narrowly, but I’ve never seen his attempt, as I was listening to that match on radio. I was planting oats, on 24 May, the latest I have ever sown a crop of cereals. It’s actually late for sowing maize, which was happening over the ditch. As it happens, my oats crops look better than the maize. They are a full crop, lush green. The problem is they are a month or more behind any normal schedule, and may run out of time. I don’t know if grain will ever form, and if it does if I will have weather to harvest it in late September.
The thing is, when I planted that crop, one of the motivating factors was the knowledge that I would receive the SIM for the 12 ha involved. The minister has taken that money off the table this week. Even if everything falls in my favour, I doubt anyone will want oaten straw on 1 October. I’ll probably be chopping it anyway.
Wexford IFA chair Jer O'Mahony demonstrates the complexity of the dozens of schemes farmers participate in, as he presents Wexford County Council with a set of application forms and terms and conditions
A second issue is that I, like most tillage farmers, am looking at a second very difficult year financially. I will probably be sitting down with a relationship manager looking for short-to medium-term facilities when this harvest is over, particularly if grain prices remain where they are. And when I do, my inventory won’t include 40 ha of straw in the SIM. Instead, there will be hundreds of straw bales. They may be sold; they almost certainly won’t be paid for. And instead of the bank representative putting thousands to the credit side of my account, as payment would be guaranteed, there will just be some question marks. That affects my ability to draw down essential funding, and affects my ability to repay whatever I borrow.
Greater good
Of course, it’s not about me, I only say this to illustrate the consequences of the minister’s decision. It’s about many things, but primarily it’s about the integrity of the whole system of schemes that underpins Irish farming. A system so complex that the application forms and terms and conditions involved form a stack that is two feet high, as graphically shown by Wexford IFA who printed them out earlier this year.
To quote Kieran McEvoy, the IFA grain chair, speaking last Monday at that Kildare meeting, “ IFA are opposed to suggestions that farmers be paid for straw incorporation, but allowed to bale the crop. It might alleviate a short-term issue, but it would undermine the integrity of the scheme, and risk its future”.
Kieran was 100% correct. I hope the minister recognises this, and takes the difficult but correct step- to reverse his decision. McEvoy followed up by calling on grain farmers to engage with their neighbours and supply straw if they could. He reminded them that it has always been possible to withdraw a field or fields from the SIM right up until the day of harvesting, and to bale instead of chopping. As long as livestock farmers are willing to pay a fair price for straw, there will be no shortage of it.
Show your strength minister, do the right thing. There's a ladder and a shovel available to you right now. No damage has been done as yet, and you will only go up in my estimation if you correct your course. I suspect that sentiment will be widely held.
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