The IFA’s director general, Damian McDonald, has defended making young farmers pay membership fees to the association.

He said a farmer-funded model maintains the organisation's independence from the State, a position State funding could undermine.

McDonald made the comments at an IFA regional meeting in Cavan. He said such independence, from the Department of Agriculture and other wings of the State, remains critical to properly representing farmers’ interests.

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The IFA boss also flagged to members that the association is trialling a discounted membership fee of €10 for third-level students, in a bid to encourage the next generation of elected officers to join the association’s ranks.

Further benefits

“On the family membership and the main membership - we'd argue it's better than free if you look at all of the FBD voucher and the other aspects to it,” McDonald said on Tuesday.

“We do have the family membership, which is very favourable in terms of getting more family members in and, genuinely, if you look at it in terms of what's available as an offer for your membership, you'd easily make it up in terms of the cost.

“But on a bigger point for the association, like the IFA is one of the few organisations in this country now that is not dependent in any shape or form on Government funding.

“We don't get a shilling off the Government.”

A necessary cost

The director general recognised that while “nobody likes charging membership fees”, the IFA must fund itself to levels that leave it capable of taking on a Department of Agriculture with 2,000 employees and the even-better-staffed EU agri-food wing.

“If we were we ran out of money in the morning and we went into the Department of Agriculture and we said we need €1m to keep the lights on, I bet you every penny, Francie [Gorman] would have the cheque going out the door," McDonald said.

“Because they know we'd be a different organisation to deal with once we got into a scenario where we were seeking government funding.”

McDonald said that attracting new members is a “massive challenge for the association because there's less young farmers”, but he added that “membership has held up very well”.

An Irish Farmers Journal poll of over 1,000 farmers conducted at the end of August found that two-thirds of participants report that they were paid-up members of a farming organisation, with 58% of those respondents agreeing that their fees or levies delivers value.