Speech at the 86th National Ploughing Championships
Screggan, Co. Offaly, 19 September 2017
A Chairde Gael,
Is mór an pléisiúir dom an 86ú Comórtas Náisiúnta Treabhdóireachta a oscailt.
It is an honour and a great pleasure to open the 86th National Ploughing Championships here in Screggan, Co. Offaly, a venue which proved to be an ideal location last year, drawing record attendances of 283,000 people over the three days.
Every time that I come here – and Sabina and I have been here every year in recent times – I marvel at the sheer size, scale and energy of “the Ploughing”. What began as a small contest, all the way back in 1931, seeking to answer the crucial question as to which county in Ireland had the best ploughman, has now grown into one of Europe’s largest outdoor events, creating what approximates to a temporary town – which emerges almost overnight in the heart of the countryside.
This festival is a testament to the vibrancy and the organisational talent in Ireland’s farming community, and I want to congratulate and thank our hosts, and all the neighbouring farmers who have facilitated the transformation of some 600 acres of farmland into Ireland’s farming ‘capital city’. The community effort required to make this event a success should warm the heart of all those who are gathered here today.
The continued expansion and development of this event is due in no small part to the dedication of the National Ploughing Association’s organising team, including its Managing Director of over four decades, Ms. Anna May McHugh. Their commitment, enthusiasm and professionalism allow all of us, year after year, to fully enjoy these days together.
Of course, there are many others who also deserve our thanks and without whom this important event would not be possible; Offaly County Council, the Gardaí and the many clubs and rural organisations that all come together, in a tremendous display of rural enthusiasm, to create this inspiring festival.
Together, in the co-operation that is an essential part of rural life, you have created and sustained these Ploughing Championships, this most enjoyable and important celebration of rural Ireland in all its aspects, and an annual tribute to those who farm, and to those who are the custodians of not only our food but also our society, our landscapes, our natural environment and our ways of life.
It is also important to stress that these Championships, “the Ploughing”, are also an annual opportunity for those who have moved to our towns and cities to restore their connections with rural communities and the land we live on.
A chairde,
These few days are a celebration, and an opportunity to take note too, of the profound role that farmers and farming play in our society – a role that can never be fully understood in market figures and sales statistics. They are important indicators, but they do not reflect the changes that are taking place.
Above all else, family farming is a fundamental human activity that not only connects all of us to nature but also transfers not only the knowledge of food security from generation to generation, but also a valuable lore of understanding that comes from proximity to soil, animals and plants. It is a valuable way of life, needing nurture, support, understanding and social policies as well as economic and price interventions.
Among the stands I hope to visit is that of Teagasc. As I prepared my notes I was indebted to a valuable paper prepared by David Meredith on the challenges facing rural communities. That paper quoted the National Farm Survey of 2015, that showed 34% of farms were vulnerable, as without an off-farm source of income to farmer or spouse the farm was not viable.
Farming has to be supported. As part of our economy, the agri-food sector is our largest indigenous industry. Its contribution to the national and global production of food for a growing population is significant, since it operates in our rural communities to provide sources of income and employment, but also makes use of the natural capital and resources in our environment. It accounts for over 11 billion of exports and over 160,000 jobs. Ireland’s agriculture has been, and continues to be, central to shaping the future of our country and our society.
Farming as a crucial component of society is vulnerable all over Europe. Ireland is no exception. We are challenged to address the succession issue, offering a future to the next generation of educated young farmers.
Acknowledging these crucial facts also means acknowledging instances of unbalanced development in Ireland, that leave us with both rural depletion and urban diseconomies – two sides of the same coin, and a contradiction that affects not only those who work in agriculture and make their living on the land, but impinges on the whole of society.
Social cohesion requires achieving a balanced society and economy. That aim was always the main purpose of regionalism, regional theory and planning, an emphasis that has fallen out of favour with the privileging of sectoral thinking.
When rural communities struggle with a lack of adequate infrastructure and with an exodus of its young people, this is a matter not only for those affected, but for all of us; Some rural towns have become sleeper communities, as 71% of all jobs associated with new foreign direct investment are concentrated where existing clusters are located; Such rural commuter concentrations may have seen population numbers increase, others fare worse.
Recent Census figures show that, despite an overall increase in our population, population numbers have fallen in 40% of the Electoral Divisions of our country, and this was where the population was already in decline. It is in these areas, as current figures suggest, that one-third of Irish farms are deemed ‘economically vulnerable’. This is a situation that concerns us all.
Rural depopulation has contributed to the loss of services such as post offices, shops, banks, pubs and restaurants and health services. The loss of this social infrastructure then becomes a factor in driving further rural depopulation. A vicious cycle, if you like, which we must find ways of overcoming, and which requires the intervention of an entrepreneurial State.
In addition, it must be noted that the other side of the coin of this pattern of rural depletion is one of urban strain, where the benefits of the city, in terms of agglomeration, accessibility and economic clustering, are being outweighed by all too-often inadequately planned urban growth and its associated inefficiencies through congestion, spiralling costs associated with speculation and under provision of housing, all contributing to social fragmentation.
May I suggest that, as we gather here to celebrate what is good and important about Irish rural life, we should turn again to the case for balanced regional development, and renew our commitment to achieving a balance in society, meeting the great challenge of reviving and revitalising rural Ireland.
This is indeed one of the great challenges of our time; one that can, and must be met. We have the means to understand this challenge. A socially based application of technology, science, and crafted infrastructural expenditure of an economic, social and technical kind can help us achieve our targets.
The loss of vibrant, viable rural communities is not inevitable, nor is it the result of some unalterable natural phenomena, presented lazily as some “way of the world”. Rather, the challenges being faced by rural communities across Ireland are the result of choices, both large and small – or failures to make choices – that have the cumulative effect that I have been describing. These choices are ours, and as such, they are ours to change. With the required political will, ambition and imagination, we can, I believe, turn the tide.
It would simply be wrong, too, to assume that any endeavour to revitalise our rural communities would in any way be contrary to our overall economic development. By revisiting our analysis of the advantages of effective regionalisation and regional planning, by investing in rural infrastructure, transport and broadband, and by providing appropriate business support, we can create new efficiencies and opportunities in rural settlements, generating jobs as well as more vibrant, cohesive communities across the country. Cities relieved of spiralling diseconomies are likely to be more sustainable living experiences. The very last thing we need is a wasteful, false divide between city and country.
Dear friends,
Next week marks the second anniversary of the adoption of that most important agreement of 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals.
This international accord set out a path towards a healthier, more just world in which all nations are working together to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. In doing so, the new “Sustainable Development Goals” invite us to radically rethink our approach to the economy, to solidarity and to the natural world. Although infused with a sense of time-bound urgency, the Sustainable Development Goals implore us to “think long”, and to focus on the needs not only of those who currently dwell on this planet, but also those yet to come. The Goals require all of our support, our understanding, our advocacy and our changes in practice.
Good farming, achieving succession in farming, has always involved thinking long. Resourcing the farming sector and individual farmers to achieve sustainability makes sense.
Balanced rural development is a test for our aims, within social policy, such as “leaving no-one behind.” As such, it is relevant not only for our approach to the natural world, but also to our thinking about how we promote and protect cohesion and solidarity at local, national and international level.
The challenges I have outlined are important ones, and require new thinking and new practices, in areas as diverse as, for instance, carbon-neutral agriculture, soil management and renewable energies, as well as new policies to manage our spatial planning, our education system, our social safety nets and indeed our foreign policy.
It is also important to base this new thinking on a strong awareness of the facts, as well as on a grounded appreciation of the core elements in Irish agriculture, its rural communities and the environment, which allow sustainable farming practices to be positioned at the centre of the agri-food sector’s vision and long-term strategy for itself and for our society. If it is valuable to have traceability of product – and it is a huge asset – surely it will be valuable too to have transparency in the relationship between producers and every link in the chain of food production, particularly in the retail sector. In that regard the recent report for the OECD of Cees Keerman is worthy of study and support. We should be open to considering legislating for farm transactions if it is found necessary.
Our starting point in this context must be, as stated in Food Wise 2025, one where “environmental sustainability and economic sustainability are equal and complementary – one cannot be achieved at the expense of the other.”
This cannot be just an empty slogan. It must become a way of thinking for all who are involved in the agri-food sector.
Muna bhfuil timpeallacht sláintiúil ann, ní bheidh geilleagar sláintiúil ná sochaí sláintiúil ann ach oiread.
[Without a healthy environment, we cannot have a healthy economy or healthy society.]
These Ploughing Championships are an opportunity to celebrate the tradition, knowledge and innovation of our farming sector. If we are to meet the challenges I have outlined, it is vital that we mobilise all the members of society involved in farming, food production, retail and consumption to share new ideas, new skills and methods, within an ethic of fairness, transferring information and exchanging best practice across a range of areas.
In that context, let me celebrate some of the good news and pay tribute to the many schemes that pioneer the transfer of knowledge from the ground up. Programmes such as the Burren Programme, that has initiated a novel ‘hybrid’ approach to farming and conservation which sees farmers paid for both work undertaken and, most importantly, for the delivery of defined environmental objectives. I wish to especially recognise its being awarded the title of ‘Best EU Life project’ in the past 25 years under the Nature and Biodiversity heading.
Similarly, the development of locally-led schemes, such as the hen harrier and freshwater pearl mussel schemes, bring farmer representatives on the ground into the scheme. Their local knowledge and experience of the agricultural landscape and practices are used to develop the actions at local level across all areas of the scheme.
These are encouraging and tangible examples of how the new thinking and new co-operative practices we need are being delivered at farm level.
It is this type of new thinking that we will need, at policy and institutional level, to meet the other challenges we are facing. Chief among these, are the challenges arising from our rapidly changing international context, most tangibly those related to the decision by voters in the UK in June 2016 to leave the European Union.
The impact of this decision, although the form which it should take is still under discussion, is – as noted by the farming organisations – already having a negative impact on Irish agriculture, with currency fluctuations already having cost us €650 million and creating the risk of fostering investment uncertainty.
The fall in the value of Sterling has already adversely affected our exports, and the SMEs and agri-food sectors that rely on it.
Ireland’s agri-food sector has a high dependence on the UK market, with 37% of all food and drink exports in 2016 going to our nearest neighbour and €2.8 billion of our annual €7 billion worth of imports of food and live animals sourced from the UK.
It is clear that, with the shared land border and the level of trade and co-operation between North and South, it is pivotal that our future relations with the United Kingdom not only preserve the closest possible trading relationship, but also the many benefits associated with our close relations in all other areas of life. Similarly, it is important for Ireland and Irish food producers to strengthen our relations with as many other countries as possible in Europe and further afield.
The Irish have always been an international people, and we have common bonds with many countries. Now is the time to strengthen those bonds, and to build new bridges with our partners around the world. I have found a willingness and a welcome available to us in the meetings that I have had with other Heads of State. That simply creates opportunities for the opening of doors through which our producers and exporters are well-prepared to enter with excellent, fully traceable product.
Next month, Sabina and I will undertake, at the request of the Government, State Visits to Australia and New Zealand, at the invitation of the governments in those countries. Those visits will be an opportunity to highlight our countries’ shared histories, and to strengthen the economic, tourism, cultural and political links between our nations.
In my meetings, I will be discussing many of the challenges I have just highlighted, and it will also be an occasion to reach out to the 2.5 million Australians, or 11% of the population, who indicate they have Irish ancestry, as well as the 80,000 Irish born citizens who have made the country their home.
On one of the days of the State Visit to Australia I will be meeting the descendants of my great-uncle Patrick Higgins, who went to Australia in 1862 as a ploughman, and went on to win local draught horse competitions and Ploughing championships in the Darling Downs on a number of occasions in the 1860’s.
Now is also the time, I suggest, not to focus solely on the risks inherent in the Brexit process, but to forge ahead with a positive and constructive articulation of the Europe that we want to build with our fellow members in the European Union. The future of that Union depends on social cohesion being at the top of the agenda at every institutional level in the Union.
Lest we forget, that community of peoples that we call the EU was always about more than the creation of a single market or a single currency. At its heart, the “European Project” is about shared values and a common purpose. Europe is short-hand for the sharing of prosperity and security, for achieving freedom from poverty, for solidarity with those less fortunate than ourselves, and for articulating - as well as living up to - a core set of values and ethics.
Friends, we are at a crucial moment in our history, when the challenges to our established patterns may at times seem greater than the opportunities for a new departure. Let us be positive, however, and remind ourselves that now is an outstanding time for new thinking. The failings of old paradigms and dogmas have become apparent to the many. So let us allow the new sustainable thinking its day.
Now is not the time to retreat behind national borders, or behind imagined glorious pasts. Now is the time for us to think afresh, and to gather our strength. To build, together, structures that serve what we value, recognising the value of the edifice painstakingly built by generations before us, but encouraging each other to take the steps necessary to achieve that fundamental objective of human life, which is the guaranteeing of the well-being, flourishing and full participation of all the world’s citizens, both today and in the future.
May I wish the best of luck to all of this year’s competitors and a very enjoyable Ploughing Championships to you all.
It is a great pleasure for me to be able to declare the 86th National Ploughing Championships officially open.
Go raibh maith agaibh arís as ucht an cuireadh chun bheith anseo, agus go n-éirí go geal libh go léir.