Would you support a new Rural Political Party

tesla_newbie · 03-05-2023 10:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551139#Comment_120551139

Fitzmaurice is bull thick ( he’s a decent skin though)

paddysdream · 03-05-2023 10:49pm

We really should get this thread back on topic I feel.Too much global warming doom mongering and not enough answers to the question or even what anyone would consider a good or bad policy.Keep the green stuff to a minimum.

My opinion for what its worth.Any new "rural party" would need first and foremost credible candidates who would have a decent support network of canvassers.Newly interested enthusiastic party workers soon lose interest and when you look at Facebook etc you see any amount of loo las shouting about ag. policy.Any of them I know in real life you wouldn't trust to mind your sheepdog let alone run the country.

Could any alternative (excluding the shinners) be any less harmful to rural Ireland than what we have at present ?A government where the sop to the minority party seems to be the price of staying in power .The problem is the sop will do lasting damage to the country long after Eamon and Pippa are but a distant memory unless many of their policies are reversed.

alps · 03-05-2023 10:59pm

This entire thread is symptomatic of why a rural party has no chance of surviving.

893bet · 03-05-2023 11:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552378#Comment_120552378

A google suggestion cap bidget from 2021 to 2027 is 365 billion.

Eu population is 750milion. So for just 81 euro per head per year the CAP has delivered good security. It’s a tiny amount.

03-05-2023 11:02pm

Rural is basically anything outside the m50 so it’s farmers and anyone else in that region.

Fellas think inside the m50 is like Manhattan or something but it’s just sold like that

alps · 03-05-2023 11:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551712#Comment_120551712

1. Food production targets should be in the region of 20%.

2. Farmers are on the way to reaching that target and the government will not need to further incentivise.

Thank you.

GNWoodd · 03-05-2023 11:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552300#Comment_120552300

Are you prepared to pay for food without subsidies ? Yes or No ?

Personally it makes no odds to me if there are subsidies or not , or whether there is a margin over cost or not .

I just like having a go at a few clowns on here who obviously know fcuk all about farming / food production but who think that they can dictate to farmers how to run their businesses.

Birdnuts · 04-05-2023 1:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552378#Comment_120552378

The reason for low margins is due to overproduction in conventional systems - that has nothing to do with going organic. Also the current CAP still has requirements for min stocking rates to collect full SFP money, not to mention the damage done from penalizing farmers(up till very recently) who happened to leave some habitat for nature at a time of an ongoing biodiversity crisis. I would also throw in the near constant bailouts for loss making intensive systems like pigs and poultry etc.. Its not just about organic anyways, we need to wean farming off high chemical inputs for a long list of reasons(soil degradation, water pollution, growing antibiotic/herbicide/pesticide resistance issues etc.) any type of farming that achieves that is a win for farmers and the environment. As for health benefits, studies have shown that the nutrient quality of veg etc. has declined dramatically in the last 70 years since intensive farming techniques arrived

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2022/05/fruits-and-vegetables-are-less-nutritious-than-they-used-to-be

Birdnuts · 04-05-2023 1:53am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552553#Comment_120552553

I think the question is based on flawed logic if you are talking about subs based on production and food cost trends(as I have pointed on in previous posts here) - I am all for subs based on farms providing public goods based on sustainable food production, which appears to be where the CAP is headed anyways. The CAP your clinging to was the one that came out of post war Europe which was devastated by WW2 and is 70 years out of date in terms of where the globalized economy is now. It has little relevance in 2023 for a long list of reasons. The only production subs that now could be argued for in this country is to revive the fruit, native grain and veg sector given the level of foreign imports there. Overall 80% of food consumed in this country is now imported which is a pretty poor show for a country that prides itself on its food production image:(

Birdnuts · 04-05-2023 2:36am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552455#Comment_120552455

As I have pointed out several times, the main changes to affect farming coming down the line have nothing to do with Sleepy Eamon or any other Blueshirt biker. It will be shaped by the main CAP funders like Germany where any huffing and puffing from those here who want to cling to long outdated conceptions ie. frozen in the 1980's, of what farming and rural Ireland should b like(IFA and their fellow travellers), simply won't register.

whisky_galore · 04-05-2023 5:51am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120547673#Comment_120547673

The big bad govt didn't close rural pubs, the small shop or the post office. It's the people who didn't go to them shut them down.

Changing tastes would have shut pubs that were on their last legs anyhow.

paddysdream · 04-05-2023 8:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552774#Comment_120552774

Few points.

As far as I am aware there is no stocking rate requirement for SFP.There is nothing on the application re stock numbers etc etc.

What is " an ongoing biodiversity crisis" ? Sounds good but its meaningless.

Pugs and poultry production have not received constant bailouts .

Irish farmers have a lot less reliance on chemical or antibiotic inputs than many other countries.

In any case these are not always bad as many crops are unviable without them.

I would imagine any perceived quality drop would be much more related to breeding than any chemical inputs.

We cannot go back to a 1940's system and expect it to provide food at a level of availability and safety that we gave at present.

GNWoodd · 04-05-2023 9:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552781#Comment_120552781

I wasn’t talking about subsidisation based on production.Decoupling has been accepted for the last three decades as the road the CAP is on. I am not aware of anyone looking to go back to a production linked approach .

All I am looking for is an honest debate. Posters seem to think that you can make fundamental changes and that those changes will have no consequences. Subsidies being a case in point. Agriculture in the EU continues to be subsidised albeit through area based schemes- AEOS, GLAS,ACRES and the ANC. You seem to think that the future direction of EU policy is to reduce or remove agricultural subsidies so my question remains unanswered

Do you want food produced without subsidies or not ?

GNWoodd · 04-05-2023 9:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552781#Comment_120552781

I wasn’t talking about subsidisation based on production.Decoupling has been accepted for the last three decades as the road the CAP is on. I am not aware of anyone looking to go back to a production linked approach .

All I am looking for is an honest debate. Posters seem to think that you can make fundamental changes and that those changes will have no consequences. Subsidies being a case in point. Agriculture in the EU continues to be subsidised albeit through area based schemes- AEOS, GLAS,ACRES and the ANC. You seem to think that the future direction of EU policy is to reduce or remove agricultural subsidies so my question remains unanswered

Do you want food produced without subsidies or not ?

GNWoodd · 04-05-2023 10:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552792#Comment_120552792

You are fighting shadows . Nobody wants to cling on to any outdated subsidies, by which I mean subsidies linked to production.

If Germany holds the purse strings and reduces existing subsidies they had better be prepared for the consequences . If you remove current subsidies watch food prices double or maybe treble within twelve months .

GNWoodd · 04-05-2023 10:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552828#Comment_120552828

There were many factors involved . But a government making it a criminal offence to drive home after drinking two or three pints wasnt a help.

Packrat · 04-05-2023 11:16am

@BlueSkyDreams, very simple question:

Would you prefer

1 That your food shopping bill goes to the true cost of production in the EU ie roughly doubles to triples?

2 That all your food is sourced frim the cheapest in € cost part of the world regardless of quality, environmental damage and animal welfare?

3 That the EU continues to subsidise your weekly shop by spending around €2.70 weekly (around 40% of that is citizens taxes) to keep food standards and prices as they are?

Those are the options. Pick one.

Base price · 04-05-2023 11:22am

@Birdnuts - can you expand on what you mean by this statement from one of your above posts - “I am all for subs based on farms providing public goods based on sustainable food production”

Say my name · 04-05-2023 11:50am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552538#Comment_120552538

I was talking to a carbon credit advisor yesterday from Poland (his work involves promoting biochar to Polish farmers).

His thinking is the reduction Irish farmers or any EU farmers make in Nitrogen fertiliser use should be rewarded and encouraged by the use of Carbon credits. It's a much simpler system than soil carbon credits. Since you should know your baseline of what you used to use (proof will be needed) and what you currently use today. And this is a yearly reduction, it can't be taken from you if you do increase to your former level. Like soil carbon.

Outside farming businesses use these metrics for themselves e.g such a practice reduces fossil fuel by such a amount and I believe that reduction credit is then traded or government supported or such.

Irish farmers are missing tricks all over the place when it comes carbon reduction and climate. We're being dictated to rather than dictating out.

04-05-2023 1:00pm

The rural urban divide is a waste of time, it's divide and conquer. Squabble away between ourselves so we don't use that energy to do something new or different. There are people an families in tough spots on either side of the M50.

Something @Siamsa Sessions said, about certain questions possibly being an academic question for another poster is a lot closer to the bone on this thread. That is...

Do you have skin in the game or not?

Are new or proposed laws and regulations an academic question which won't affect you, but you may like. Are they an irritant which you can live with? Or are they an existential threat to your ability to thrive making a decent (moral) living in life.

The academic people can just as easily live nextdoor to you in ballygobackwards as D4.

Siamsa Sessions · 04-05-2023 1:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553919#Comment_120553919

Full disclosure: I work in an academic environment 3 days/week.

I see what's "real" in academia and I see what's "real" in farming. Both are equally valid in their own way. But we need to remember the Yogi Berra quote, oft repeated by Nasim Taleb:

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice - in practice there is."

04-05-2023 3:22pm

What’s the crack with these expressway buses? Often see them with 3 or 4 on board. Why not run a better service with handy sized buses from your regional towns to cities?

Could do a link up with minibuses in from villages.

Quitelife · 04-05-2023 3:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120543008#Comment_120543008

I have no problem with small/medium sized farmers having decent tractors but theres a tranche of large dairy farmers who are creaming it money wise and are constantly looking for even more grants etc...and will cook the books to get grants for all their children going to college despite the fact they have new tractors,new jeeps, new car for the wife and a mansion of a house built.

Any effort i have seen of a rural party has been hijacked by large dairy farmers who want even more wealth to the detriment of everyone else including the small / medium sized farmers struggling.