Fodder and hay being exported is ‘criminal’

“The chance has gone” to organise backloads of fodder on lorries transporting straw west and northwards, ICMSA president Denis Drennan told the National Fodder and Food Security Committee meeting on Monday.

Drennan said farmers from the worst drought-affected areas in the south and east are sourcing fodder in the midlands and the west, but the transport costs are making this feed prohibitive.

“Farmers who are being pro-active are paying the full cost of transport, while the person who is reckless and says ‘we’ll wait and see what happens next spring’ will have a scheme brought in for them,” said Drennan.

Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon has indicated that he feels a fodder transport support scheme is more appropriate in the spring.

“We have people buying silage and paying the money up front so these farmers can make more silage for themselves,” said Drennan. “There is hay and fodder going out of the country at the moment, which is criminal,” he added.

“The biggest overriding concern is cashflow,” said IFA deputy president Alice Doyle, highlighting that farmers have eaten into their finances as well as their feed budgets in recent months as the drought halted grass growth for two months and more.

“Farmers are extremely worried about the spring. There is a worry over how much feedstock is available”.

Mona O’Donoghue Concannon of the ICSA said: “We’re finding with our [mainly drystock] farmers, because they’ve lower incomes, they may have had financial difficulties in the past, and their loan applications aren’t even getting past pre-assessment.”

Macra president Josephine O’Neill threw her organisation’s weight behind a fodder support scheme now, and called for consideration of the mental stress farmers are experiencing as they face a shortfall in feed this winter.