Proposals from Beef and Sheep Food-Vision Group

Proposals from Beef and Sheep Food-Vision Group

Proposals from Beef and Sheep Food-vision group must provide opportunities for young people to enter the sectors

Commenting following today’s meeting of The Food Vision Beef and Sheep forum the Macra na Feirme president said “in the context of sustainability which is front and foremost in all discussion in relation to agriculture, it is important to remember that in order for agriculture to sustain we need new people entering the sector to carry it forward.”

The Macra president John Keane emphasised how “young people want to go farming but policies here to fore have not been assessed in relation to generational renewal and the impacts that these policies have on providing young people with opportunities to enter the farming sector.”

The Food Vision Beef and Sheep forum met for the second time today (Thursday 30 June), Macra na Feirme continued to highlight the need to provide a future in the sector for young people. The largest number of farmers are in the beef and sheep sectors accounting for in the region of 80,000 family farms.

“It is crucial that a succession pathway that works for young farmers and exiting older farmers is developed in the context of the report delivered by the group”, said Keane.

Macra na Feirme raised concerns in the Food Vision Dairy group Interim report in relation to generational renewal.

“The voluntary scheme proposed only promotes land locking and not generational renewal. Putting limits on the ability of land to produce fodder or support livestock production systems will not achieve generational renewal on Irish family farms”, said Keane.

“The Beef and Sheep group must support the need for more young people to enter farming with tangible measures that can also support the realising of our climate action plan targets. Assessing all proposals and policies on the impact that they have on attracting young people into farming is crucial given that currently less than 6% of farmers are under 35”, concluded Keane.

Press Release: Thursday 30 June 2022