Irish Dairy Farmers staged a "Milking Protest" at Government Buildings in Dublin

About 100 members of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) have protested outside Government Buildings in Dublin this afternoon over the price they are being paid for their milk.

The dairy farmers used mobile equipment to milk five cows in front of the Taoiseach's office to highlight their difficulties.

ICMSA leader Jackie Cahill said "it is not possible to exaggerate the crisis in the Irish dairy industry" and that there seems to be "a denial of the facts at government level".

Brendan Smith, TD stated that he is "aware of the difficulties". And one would indeed hope so, as he is after all the current Minister for Agriculture.

He said that for many months he has been "demanding special measures at European level, including intervention storage and export refunds", and that he "will be seeking further help next week in Brussels".

But as nice as this might sound, it is just lip-service and no help for the Irish dairy farmers.

What the Irish farmers need is a fair price for their products. And this is not decided by EU officials in Brussels, but by the buyers of the supermarket chains in Ireland. They are the ones who have squeezed the farmers over years and pushed down the prices they pay them for milk At the same time there is no reduction of the prices that Irish consumers have to pay for milk in supermarkets and other shops. The difference is pocketed by the retailers, and if the farmers are seeking a solution for their problem, then they should address it to the right people.

The Emerald Islander

Milking is all they know...

Today the newly elected European Parliament debates agricultural matters in Strasbourg. And as there are always some of Europe's farmers protesting against something, there is of course a demonstration taking place outside the parliament building.

By now EU politicians are used to that. Europe's farmers have long learned to begin to complain before they begin to suffer. (I should know, as one of my grandfathers was co-organiser of the very first demonstration of farmers that brought hundreds of tractors into the centre of Brussels and parked them in protest outside the EU Commission building - many years ago.)

Currently the problem seems to be that dairy farmers are not getting paid enough money for their milk. Well, as farming is a business, they should simply demand more and refuse to sell below their production price. The supermarkets can well afford to pay a decent price for milk.

But perhaps we are producing too much milk as it is. One of the farmers interviewed for a radio programme today said that "milking cows is all I know". Maybe that is the problem. Inflexibility does not help anyone, and the millions of other Europeans who have lost their jobs recently as a result of the recession are certainly asked to be flexible and to adjust themselves to the needs of the market.

Is it not fair to expect the same from Europe's farmers? Why should they be treated always a bit better than the rest? And why should all of us have to pay good money to subsidise farmers who are no longer competitive (or whose products are no longer economically viable)?
With the abolition of milk quotas, which has already been decided, there is a chance of a totally new and re-structured Agriculture in Europe. The question is if our farmers will step up to the plate and take this chance as a positive challenge, or if they will keep sitting on their tractors and grumble until the cows come home and the EU's cheques are in the post.

Aside from the main business in Strasbourg there was a little incident today that made me smile. (Sorry, farmers, I just couldn't help it...)
About 100 Irish dairy farmers had hired two buses and were on their way to Strasbourg, where they wanted to join the demonstration against further cuts in the agricultural budget. But - as it happens - the Irish farmers never arrived at their destination.

Their buses were stopped on a French motorway. Not by Police or anxious EU officials, keen to keep them away. No, Eire's eager dairy farmers were caught in a trap of their own protest. Their buses were just two of the many hundreds - perhaps thousands - of vehicles French farmers brought to a lengthy standstill when they decided to go to a main motorway and block it, as an act of protest against low farming income.

A brain or two, plus a couple of mobile phones, could have avoided that or solved the problem. But then again, what can one expect from people who state that "milking is all I know"...

The Emerald Islander

EU Agriculture Ministers agree on CAP Reform

The European Union's Ministers for Agriculture have finally reached an agreement on major changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
It follows all-night negotiations in Brussels to review the system of subsidy payments to farmers.

Padraig Walshe (right), President of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA), has already spoken out against the new agreement and criticised the decision to cut the single farm payment by 5% over five years.

Meanwhile Brendan Smith (left), Ireland's Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food, said that "despite difficult negotiations, it was a good package for farmers in Ireland".

The ministers at the talks agreed to sweep away various established agriculture support schemes, including diverting subsidies from large farms to countryside preservation schemes.

After concessions given by (the Danish) EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel (right), most notably to France, Germany and Italy, ministers struck an early-morning deal that still represents Europe's most significant farm reform in five years.

"It was a qualified majority, not unanimity," said an official, who did not say which country or countries in the 27-nation union had not backed the accord during all-night talks.

Apart from long arguing over how much handouts to divert into countryside funding, the main hurdles were how to liberalise the EU dairy sector before milk production quotas expire in 2015. Public purchasing of key commodities - like wheat and the future of the EU's remaining production-linked farm subsidies - where also on the agenda.

All holdings, subject to a basic threshold of € 5000 in subsidies a year, will shift 5% of their EU farm money into countryside projects by 2012, on top of a compulsory 5% already in force. Commissioner Fischer Boel had originally been seeking 8%.
Much of her vision of applying a tiered system of annual income thresholds to shunt subsidies, in progressively higher amounts, from larger farms into rural spending also got diluted.

Instead of three thresholds for farms receiving subsidies, only one will now apply - € 300,000 and higher - where 4% of subsidies will be moved into rural projects by 2012.

The policy revisions will start in 2009 and run until 2013.

Chicken Processing resumes at Cappoquin

Work has resumed again at the premises of Cappoquin Chickens - recently renamed Cappoquin Poultry - in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, after many of the employees began accepting new work and pay conditions.

The new (English) management team suggested that employees would have to take a 17% cut in hourly pay, with most of them having to work for the minimum wage of € 8.65. Under the plan 25 people would lose their jobs.
A majority of employees present rejected this and a new offer was put to them which would entail a further ten job losses, but those remaining would be offered € 9 per hour and time and a quarter for overtime.

Most of the 200 employees said they were unhappy with pay terms and conditions first proposed.
They were told that they can either apply for a job with the new company or take redundancy terms set out by the liquidator of Cappoquin Chickens.

Eventually, many of the workers did accept the second offer of the new management, even though they will still earn less than they did before in the old company.
With few jobs available in the rural western part of Co. Waterford and unemployment rising fast all over Ireland, they do not have much of a choice. Especially as most of the people in question have worked in the poultry business for a long time and would not find it easy to change over into other industries.

Under the new regime there are expected to be at least 40 fewer staff required from the 200 which were employed last month. Negotiations are continuing with office and delivery staff.

Cappoquin Chickens, which had been in liquidation for a month, was bought by a consortium led by the British-based company Derby Poultry Processors. (see my entries of September 17th and October 3rd)

It remains to be seen if the business will flourish again under its new ownership, and if market shares lost in the past can be regained.
For the moment it is good news that the business is kept in operation, in particular as Co. Waterford has one of the highest unemployment figures in the country and every person in work is a step forward, out of the current recession.

The Emerald Islander

Cappoquin Chickens bought by UK Company

Cappoquin Chickens, the well-known Irish poultry processor from Cappoquin in the western part of Co. Waterford, has been sold to the little known British company Derby Poultry Processors.

More than two weeks ago the management of the family-owned local business, which was of great importance for the area, had announced the end of operations and closure of the company, which had run into financial difficulties and accumulated debts of about € 7 million. More than 200 local jobs were lost due to the liquidation.
(for more details see my entry of September 17th)

Throughout the whole summer Cappoquin Chickens had tried to rescue the business, but failed in the end. There were also negotiations with potential buyers in the UK, but they came to no conclusion. So eventually the O'Connor family, who founded Cappoquin Chickens and ran it for nearly 50 years, had no choice but to give up.

Now it emerged that one of the English companies they were in contact with is picking up the remaining pieces of Cappoquin Chickens as a bargain. So the economic neo-colonialism we have seen many times before is raising its head once again.

In a statement Cappoquin Chickens said: "This sale will safeguard the future of the facility. The new structure will require a period of re-organisation, which will result in continued employment for the majority of the existing employees. Cappoquin Poultry Limited will now engage in a period of gradual growth to re-establish market share."

The company also said it intends to source a new hatchery, following the sale of its hatchery in recent weeks.

For the local workers this is good and bad news at the same time. Most of them will get their jobs back (which is the good news), but only under new terms and conditions, which are not as good as what they had been before.

Two of the previous owners, Paul O'Connor and Michael O'Connor Jnr., along with their former financial officer Tom Vaughan, have taken minority stakes in the new company.

The Emerald Islander

Dark Clouds gather over Stormont

The leader of the liberal cross-community Alliance Party in the North has warned that if the Stormont Executive does not meet in the coming days, the DUP and Sinn Féin would "push Northern Ireland once again towards the edge of the abyss".

Addressing an Alliance party conference, David Ford (right) said that talk of the devolution of Justice and policing powers now was premature.
With Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) still deadlocked over the devolution of policing powers and the Executive failing to meet last Thursday, the Alliance Party leader focused on the current political stalemate.

There had been speculations that Ford might be offered the post of Justice Minister as one of the solutions to the impasse. But he told party members that this was premature and accused the DUP and Sinn Féin of "delivering only the politics of confrontation", adding that his party would "play a constructive part" in any way they could.
But he also told delegates they would "not be used to apply a sticking plaster" to cover what he called "a serious fault line within the Executive".

On Friday the DUP boycotted a North-South ministerial meeting, a further sign of the dark clouds that are recently gathering over Stormont (left).
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement includes an all-Ireland political dimension on the demand of nationalists, but now that structure has begun to fall victim to the growing crisis.

The North-South agriculture meeting in Co. Cavan was to involve two ministers from both sides of the border, but the North's Environment Minister Sammy Wilson (DUP) did not attend.
Northern Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Féin) went ahead with the meeting, even though it was not held under the auspices of the North-South Ministerial Council.
She held discussions with the Republic's Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith and Éamon O Cuív, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (both Fianna Fáil).

On Thursday Sinn Féin had blocked a Northern cabinet meeting in protest at the DUP's failure to agree on a date for the devolution of policing and justice powers.
DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson (right) said the tactic made it "impossible" to approve the cross-border event and so the DUP minister scheduled to attend did not turn up.

A demand by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Northern politicians to agree a date for the devolution of policing powers was rejected by the DUP.

The 2006 St. Andrew's Agreement set May of this year as a target date for the transfer of the powers, but the DUP has said that the time is not yet right, without giving any explanation for their position.

For observers of the Northern political scene it appears that the DUP is once again trying to back-track on the various agreements they signed. One has to wonder if their word can actually be trusted, and if thus they can be really a force for good in the political and social development of the North.

The Emerald Islander

No more Cappoquin Chickens

Another serious blow has been dealt to the local economy in Co. Waterford.
The owners and management of Cappoquin Chickens, a well-known poultry producer in the rural western part of the county, has confirmed that the company, which employed up to 250 people at certain times of the year, will close with the loss of all full-time and seasonal jobs.

The winding down process has already begun and will take about six weeks to complete. Talks to save the company, including with a potential buyer from England, broke down on Monday and management say they have been "left with no option but to close".

For nearly 50 years Cappoquin Chickens has been a household name in Ireland, especially in the south and south-west of the country. Privately owned and operated by several generations of the O'Connor family from the town of Cappoquin in the west of Co. Waterford (best known as the home of the Cistercian Abbey of Mount Mellery), the company saw a steady growth since the 1960s. But more recently Cappoquin Chickens had been in financial difficulties for a number of years. The company revealed during the summer that it had accumulated debts of at least € 7 million.

I am no agricultural expert and know nothing about the production of poultry, but it seems a bit strange that the company's difficulties coincide with the 'Celtic Tiger', the massive and widely unexpected economical boom that brought nearly half a million immigrants to Ireland. One would think that such an enormous increase in the population of the country would also create more demand for food, including chicken, which are by now (after the scares of the BSE crisis) probably the most popular form of meat consumed in Ireland.

So why has Cappoquin Chickens to close, despite an enlarged market? I don't know, and I would not feel competent to speculate, as I know neither the internal situation of the company, nor the quality and competence of its managers.

Local people blame the global food crisis, which has dramatically increased the price of grain. But that is not entirely logical, as the price for all kinds of food - including chicken - has risen here in the past two years overproportionally. So when the price of grain, that is fed to the chicken, goes up, the price of the chicken rises as well. And there is no shortage of chicken in Irish shops. The canandrum remains why other producers can cope with the situation, while the O'Connor family in Cappoquin can not...

The Waterford branch of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) held a demonstration (see photo left) some time ago, in order to highlight the expected job losses in the area and in the faint hope that someone - perhaps a local politician - might actually do something before it was too late. Today the organisation is in shock, and in a statement it calls the closure of Cappoquin Chickens "another devastating blow for the Irish poultry industry".

Between 40 and 50 local egg suppliers and chicken producers, who were suppliers of Cappoquin Chickens and dependent on the company, are also deeply affected by the closure. One local producer, who has seven chicken houses with 180,000 birds, describes his future as "very bleak" without Cappoquin Chickens. "Well, chickens is all I know," he told a reporter.

Again, I feel reluctant to comment in detail, as I have no experience in the poultry business. But on a more general note I have to say that such a view is rather narrow. Millions of people around the world - and thousands in Ireland - have lost their jobs in many different industries. Quite a lot of them have no chance to stay in their line of business, trade and expertise. So they have to find something else to do, some other way to earn a living. And there are always possibilities, as new doors open the moment another door closes. All it needs is common sense, flexibility and the will and ability to learn and adapt.

Some help from the government would certainly be welcome, though I doubt that it will be a lot in the current economic recession, especially as the Minister for Finance is trying to save as much money as possible everywhere.

Perhaps it might have been wiser to invest some money in the area while the going was good and there was plenty of cash in the Treasury. But that chance has been missed, as so many others.
It is worth mentioning that the area had with Ollie Wilkinson (Fianna Fáil) a local TD (member of parliament) until the 2007 election, when he lost his seat. Being a Cappoquin man himself, and a member of the main government party, Ollie might have been able to pull a few strings in favour of his town and the local poultry industry, if he were still in Dáil Éireann. But since he was hardly ever heard of during the five years he was a TD, voters elected someone else in his place. And this TD is a city man with not much concern for chicken production.

As much as the loss of another 250 jobs in the South-East of Ireland is a concern for everyone, including myself, there is another aspect to the event. Being a vegetarian and active member of the ISPCA (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), I feel rather relieved that we will now have millions of battery chicken less in this country. The Irish diet is still too much centred on meat - including and increasingly chicken - and the consequences are manifold, but entirely negative. Perhaps the closure of the poultry industry in Cappoquin, as shocking as it may be for the local producers, could be another step forward on the way to better, healthier and more sensible food production in this country.

The Emerald Islander

Farmers threaten to say NO to Lisbon Treaty

Mary Coughlan (right), the Minister for Agriculture, is taking a recent threat by Irish farmers to vote NO in the forthcoming Lisbon Treaty referendum "seriously". Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1, Ms. Coughlan said she was working to ensure that the outcome of the World Trade negotiations is balanced, with the appropriate protections for Irish farmers and the agri-food sector.

Responding to the minister's statement, Padraig Walshe, President of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), said he had no disagreement with her stark assessment of the damage to Ireland's farm and food industry posed by WTO negotiations.

Meanwhile Fine Gael MEP Mairéad McGuinness said she is "concerned about the mounting anger among farmers" ahead of the Lisbon Treaty referendum on June 12th. She urged the government to come out very strongly and say it will use its veto on World Trade Talks.

But Education Minister Mary Hanafin said that "the [Irish] government knows that farmers have genuine concerns about what is being proposed at the talks". But she insisted that it was "too early to use the Irish veto". She stated that it was about getting an agreement that is balanced both within agriculture and between trade and agriculture.

Well, she would know, of course... But what she does know - as a former Fianna Fail treasurer and a woman born in Tipperary - is how to hoodwink and pay off the farmers, as FF has done it so successfully in the run-up to previous referenda.

It will be interesting to see if Ireland's farmers are this time wise and forward-looking, and actually mean what they say. In that case they would have to vote NO in the referendum, and that might well defeat it.
Or are Irish farmers still more after the quick buck made now than after a solid income over many years? In two months we will know.

On Thursday more than 10,000 farmers had taken part in a demonstration in Dublin, protesting against current European proposals in negotiations on world trade. Farmers from all parts of the country came to the march, and original turnout expectations were well exceeded.

The farmers gathered at Leinster House and marched to Dublin Castle, where European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso was addressing the National Forum on Europe.
Farmers are unhappy about the stance EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson is taking in the current negotiations on world trade. They say that the beef and dairy sector could be virtually wiped out.

IFA President Padraig Walshe said the current proposals to cut import tariffs will have an impact on how farmers vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum. He warned that farmers would not support a European Commission that sells out their industry.

The European Commission's Director General for Trade, the Irishman David O'Sullivan, defended the proposals, saying that if implemented, the deal would take effect over a number of years.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso stated that a deal at the Word Trade Organisation talks would be in Ireland's interest, but did not say in which way. He said getting a deal sooner rather than later would guarantee the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) agreed four years ago. But he warned that delaying the deal could mean that a review of the CAP starting in the autumn could result in a less favourable outcome for farmers.

Farmers are angry over the stance being taken by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in the current round of negotiations to liberalise the rules on world trade. They say Ireland's livestock industry would be decimated, and there would be cuts in the dairy, grain and other sectors. This could result in 50,000 rural jobs being lost and 100,000 cattle farmers being made redundant.

The Emerald Islander