Over the passed few days the Irish Farmers Journal has received messages, phonecalls and emails from tillage farmers angry and frustrated at Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue’s decision to seek to suspend the Straw Incorporation Measure. Farmers and the industry have been out in force contacting local politicians and the minister.

On Saturday night the minister announced that he was considering paying farmers to bale straw. He is to meet with farm organisations on Tuesday, 23 July to discuss options. In the meantime, farmers wait in limbo. Harvesting continued over the weekend and there is more dry weather in the forecast.

Here are some of the messages that we received from farmers from across the country.

Peter Lynch, Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal

Last week, as rumours started that the Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) was to be suspended for 2024, I was in disbelief. At first, I thought this could never happen, but as time went on, it soon became clear that this was indeed happening. I can’t understand the reasoning behind this decision.

For tillage farmers, we have come through an incredibly difficult 12 months with poor weather and fluctuating grain prices. Many key management decisions were made early in the year for both winter and spring crops, based on the expectation that the incorporation scheme was in place.

If the minister’s decision had been made two months ago, it may not have been as bad, but to make it as soon as combines started rolling is unbelievable timing. Or is it what the minister wanted? If, and it’s a major if, there is a protest organised, who will be able to go? Surely, we will all be in the fields trying to save our crops.

I’m sure the IFA grain committee, on which I served for six years, has a massive desire to do something, but will the organisation as a whole back it? I very much doubt it. I was one of the four farmers who spent almost a week in the Department offices to protest for a weather compensation scheme in 2017, and I believe that this issue effects considerably more farmers than before. We have good people on the committee, but I feel that the rest of the IFA may lack the appetite to turn this into a major protest to help save the tillage sector.

Every time the minister attended tillage meetings, he confirmed his desire to grow the tillage area in Ireland, but this recent move has really shown his true colours. This will be the final nail in the coffin for some of us.

Another question that every farmer should be pondering is why enter into any scheme now? If they can do this with the SIM, they could do it with any other scheme, even after they have completed some of the actions for the scheme. Are ACRES, the Protein Aid Scheme, TAMS, the Organic Farming Scheme, Knowledge Transfer, SCEP, forestry, Dairy Beef Welfare or indeed any other scheme, safe?

The confidence and integrity of the minister and his Department have to be seriously questioned if this decision stands.

Raymond O'Regan, Co Waterford

The proposed pulling of the SIM would be the final nail in the coffin of the tillage enterprise on our farm. We are facing another terrible year weather-wise, poor yields, poor prices and morale at an all-time low. How am I, as a young farmer, going to stay in the tillage sector when our own Minister for Agriculture will not recognise the importance of the sector?

I know there will be many more in my position. This could be the final straw for the tillage sector!

Minister stops carbon sequestration on farms and we lose another generation of tillage farmers.

John Dunne, Shanagarry, Co Cork (this is a shortened version of a letter John sent to Minister Charlie McConalogue)

The harvest of 2023 was extremely difficult and left growers both financially and mentally wounded. The autumn and spring of 23/24 were extremely wet, and this resulted in a reduced and damaged winter crop area and a late-sown and also damaged spring area.

Tillage farming in Ireland is heavily reliant on rented land, the price of which has skyrocketed due mainly to the demand from dairy farmers which are renting it to overcome changes in nitrates regulation.

The combination of high input costs and low grain prices looks like resulting in thin and many cases absent profit margins on tillage farms again in 2024.

Science

The SIM is a scientifically valid practice where excess carbon in the atmosphere can be stored in the soil for both the benefit of the atmosphere and the soil itself. We are all too aware that Ireland is not in a good place in terms of our Greenhouse Gas emissions and practices such as straw incorporation play an important role in achieving our reduction targets. To consciously walk away from such practices flies in the face of stated Government and EU GHG reduction targets.

Growers have, in good faith, signed up for the SIM in 2024. The decision to cancel the SIM in 2024 with no prior consultation and at the point where growers have already started chopping straw is to my mind unprofessional, unfair and will damage trust between farmers and the Department of Agriculture.

In most years, the majority of cereal crops will be harvested by the end of August - 2024 is very different; with so many late-sown crops planted this year, it is inevitable that many crops will have to wait to ripen in September. Harvesting a cereal crop in September is a riskier scenario as day length shortens and crop moisture increases. Not only is it difficult to harvest the grain, baling straw becomes extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.

Many of the crops that were to be chopped such as oilseed rape, oats and wheat are not in demand in the straw market. To bale these, even if they could be baled in the oncoming late harvest, would be very risky, as selling them would prove difficult. Straw buyers generally only want barley straw.

Solutions

If the livestock industry is short of fodder, straw is not the solution. Most straw is used for bedding, not as feed. As was the case in 2018, other solutions should be looked at - such as late planted fodder crops that can be planted following cereal crops. I cannot see how it is in any way fair that a struggling tillage industry should be sacrificed to alleviate pressure in other sectors. If a livestock farmer has not adequate fodder on farm for their winter, they can and should take actions like approaching tillage farmers to secure straw or even cutting their cloth to measure by selling some livestock. It is clear and known that a tillage farmer who has signed up for SIM can voluntarily withdraw from the scheme should they prefer to sell the straw to the market.

In recent years, the occurrence of 'fodder crises' has become all too common. I believe that more needs to be done to look at the reasons behind this - rather than sacrificing tillage farmers.

None of us want to see newspaper pictures of late harvested straw sitting in fields next November, rotting because it wasn’t chopped for soil incorporation and couldn’t be baled due to autumn weather. Unchopped, unbaled, unwanted.

Co Cork tillage farmer (name and address with the editor)

Even if the minister overturns this decision, without immediate clarification on whether all applicants will be accepted, we are still in limbo as people will have to decide the next dry day if they’re going to turn on the chopper or not.

Personally, I was after making enquiries to the department in relation to withdrawing one field as a neighbour was looking for straw but now I am adamant I am not withdrawing anything and chopping it all because I am so angry about this.

At a time when livestock and tillage farmers should be working together to solve nitrates issues etc, the minister has just driven a wedge between both sectors which will be hard repaired.

James O’Reilly, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny (this is a shortened version of a letter James sent to Minister Charlie McConalogue)

There's no fodder crisis. If there was, I would be getting calls to sell whole crop cereals for the silage pits as happened in 2019. I have no such requests.

Straw yields last year were decimated by straw sitting for six weeks on the ground and the yield disappeared as we continued to turn the straw coupled with the very short spring barley crops due to the excessively dry May and June in 2023. Last year my straw yield was 2,000t. My average straw yield is 4,000t.

I have started harvesting and have some straw chopped. I like all other farmers [who] entered this scheme and planted late-sown spring crops into fields budgeting on the €100/ac for these crops. If farmers were told the scheme was cancelled before we planted and harvested the crop we had alternatives which become more attractive. I cannot retrospectively change my cropping plan. Conditions have improved since April, but if the minister had pulled the scheme in April, I, like most farmers, would have chosen different crops.

If farmers were made aware of cancelling the scheme in an appropriate time they may have even left the land fallow.

Farmers are free to pull fields out of the scheme provided they notify the Department before harvesting the crop and they can sell this straw. Simple economics dictates whether a vast majority of usable straw is left in a chopping scheme or baled. Why is the minister interfering with this?

If tillage farmers are left high and dry with the SIM removed, we will be forced to refuse to take slurry to spread on our land from the livestock and municipal waste industry. We can no longer be used as the sacrificial lamb.

Environmental concern

Under the climate action plan, straw chopping was introduced as it sequesters carbon and the benefit of this is a direct benefit to the State with more carbon sequestration.

In the middle of an apparent climate crisis, it is reckless of the minister to cancel such an environmental scheme.

Where did the silage fodder scheme disappear if there was a fodder crisis? This scheme was available in 2022 and 2023.

In 2018, when there was an actual fodder crisis, the tillage sector was asked to help out and grow fodder / cover crops for the livestock industry and we did so as a group.

We are being punished for an apparent fodder crisis. This needs to be stopped. All farmers need to be worried.

Danny Doyle, Rathangan, Co Kildare

I am a young tillage farmer, farming alongside my uncle and father in Rathangan, Co Kildare. I have recently won the FBD student of the year, and I used that opportunity to publicise and promote the tillage sector, and the bright future that I think it could hold.

But unfortunately, the news that came yesterday of the SIM possibly being cut, comes as yet another massive blow to this sector. In the past couple of months in particular, there seems to be blow after blow to the tillage sector, and in turn, a blow to our income. This leads me to question the viability for me as a young farmer. It can be hard to visualise a bright future in a dwindling sector.

On our farm, we have already harvested, chopped and disced in 31 acres under the scheme. Most of the other 69 acres under the scheme is under oilseed rape, of which has absolutely no effect on the fodder supply in this country.

I fear that losing the SIM, piled on top of poor grain prices and reduced yields after such a tough winter, will lead to an even further reduction in the tillage area, and therefore a further failing in meeting our climate targets. Speaking for my family and our local growers’ group, we have all had to reduce our area due to overwhelming competition from the dairy sector.

Upon submission of the BISS application before the deadline of 15 May, we are signing into a legally binding contract with the State/Europe which must be honoured. How can the rug be pulled from under us in the middle of the contract, especially when the fields have already been chopped and disced?

Morale is already at an all-time low in the tillage sector. But this news brings a new level of disappointment and anger.