Farmers upbeat despite weather events and Brexit threat
Biggest concern they express in ICMSA Farming Today survey is debt, and also complain of difficulty hiring staff, but two-thirds are otherwise positive, says
When we reflect on the results from the annual Examiner/ICMSA Farming Today survey, we must consider the significant weather events of the past year and the impact these are likely to have had on many farmers.
Also, there remains uncertainty over Brexit, with farming and food the sectors most likely to be hit.
Against this threat, farmers are a lot more positive than we might have given them credit for.
While some profess nervousness about the amount of debt they have taken on, there is an encouraging positivity.
Two out of three farmers are broadly positive, with dairy and tillage farmers the most upbeat. Tillage farmers are more positive than last year and dairy farmers marginally less so.
What is worrying, however, is that about a third of farmers are concerned about their farm debt being too high.
This figure has been creeping gradually upwards and is most notable among farmers below the age of 50, and more particularly among those whose primary focus is dairy.
The survey also threw up an interesting angle in 2018. Slightly more than a quarter of farmers say that they have had difficulty sourcing farm workers this year.
This corresponds with a third of farmers suggesting that, in light of the immigration crisis, Ireland should welcome more migrants.
That these perspectives may move hand in hand should not be surprising: Many Irish farms and rural enterprises are now heavily dependent upon overseas workers.
Perspectives of the weather are not as bad as anticipated. Six in 10 farmers say that weather conditions have impacted their farming intensity, with 43% intending to cut back on livestock, and a third having reduced their farming intensity already, as a result of the weather.
Just one in four farmers saw an increase in livestock mortality, although we don’t have back data to compare against.
When looking to the future, most farmers anticipate that their focus is not likely to change.
A third are mainly focussed in dairy nowadays (34%), and the projection is that there will be a minor reduction in dairying by 2025.
The perspective of the various farming schemes remains positive, although most indicate broad satisfaction, but without seeming massively enthusiastic.
Younger farmers seem more progressive, while older farmers, for example, are a lot less likely to have become involved in programmes such as the Beef Data and Genomics Scheme.
The political data in 2018 may not, at first glance, seem substantially different to the pattern of previous years, with Fine Gael strongly ahead, Fianna Fáil effectively treading water, and most other parties languishing on negligible levels of support.
However, 2018 sees a sharp fall for Fine Gael; it still retains large support, but with much less certainty than before. Almost a third now indicate that they either don’t know how they would vote, or that they will not.
Younger farmers are the least convinced about future voting intentions: Half of under 35-year-olds are either undecided or would not vote if there were an election tomorrow.
Almost four in 10 now visualise a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as likely, and there has been a decided uplift, admittedly from a low level, in the view that a coalition between Sinn Féin and either of the leading parties is more possible now than it had been.
There is greater disaffection with party leaders than before, with the exception of Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin. Admittedly, her level of approval is much lower than those of either Leo Varadkar or Micheál Martin or Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil respectively.
It remains the case that the level of positive approval of Ms McDonald outstrips Sinn Fein’s support by a factor of three, while almost twice as many as would vote for Sinn Fein favour their involvement in a coalition with either of the principal parties.
Indeed, were we to place Ms McDonald alongside the current Cabinet members, she would rank mid-table, falling slightly behind Heather Humphries and Katherine Zappone, but ahead of Regina Doherty, Shane Ross, Eoghan Murphy, and Josepha Madigan.
Ministerial perspectives hint at gender and origin issues After the Taoiseach, Simon Coveney, Richard Bruton and Paschal Donohue are very highly rated, the latter neck-and-neck with Simon Harris, and the Agriculture Minister, Michael Creed, lying in fifth position overall.
When we compare the assessment of Michael Creed with that previously achieved by Simon Coveney when Minister for Agriculture in the 2013 survey, the pictures are starkly different: Coveney was a lot more highly regarded.
The political data does point towards a tendency to rate obviously Dublin-based Ministers less favourably and indeed would seem to suggest more harsh assessments of female than male Ministers.
The gender of the female Ministers concerned may be less an issue than the relevance of their portfolios to farmers, although the flat performance of Josepha Madigan, the current Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht stands out in this context. She may have attracted a degree of animosity as a result of her very public spat with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
However, the very positively expressed perspective of women becoming priests, elsewhere in the survey, should equally be noted.
Like many of the rest of us, farmers may be more sceptical politically, but they do continue to soften in respect of many social attitudes as time goes by.
The element that tends to most surprise us, as observers of social and political trends, is the ongoing liberalisation of perspectives in the rural community.
The 2018 study reflects this, indeed echoing the much more liberal vista apparent post the recent referenda on marriage equality and repeal of the Eighth Amendment.
