Irish farmers protest against dry grain imports

James Hegarty, a 39-year-old barley grower from Whitechurch, Co Cork, has been a tillage farmer since he left school 20 years ago.

Today, he is “at breaking point”, beaten down by increasing costs, falling prices for his crop and ever-rising regulation.

“It’s really difficult. My wife is working, and, if we didn’t have another income we were in big, big trouble. We are losing money at current prices,” says Hegarty, who sees no future in barley production for either of his children, James (4) or Lucy (3).

Mr Hegarty was one of more than 100 farmers who took part in a protest on Tuesday organised by the Irish Farmers' Association against the importation of dry barley grain at Foynes Port, Co Limerick.

They claim importers are undercutting Irish farmers by up to €30 a tonne of barley.

“I’m tillage farming all my life, since I left school, nearly 20 years ago. Times are tougher now than ever. Costs are increasing. Red tape is increasing, as are the requirements for quality and traceability,” Mr Hegarty said.

He called for the agricultural sector “to put on the green jersey” and show support for Irish barley growers.

“It’s a circular economy. For every tonne of grain we produce there is another half tonne of straw produced, and that’s a vital input on farms across the country – there’s no straw coming in on a boat,” he said.

Fellow barley grower Billy Cotter claims barley importers and brokers are destroying his livelihood by pricing him out of the market.

Mr Cotter (52) who for the past 30 years has grown barley on his mixed farm in Castletown Roche, Co Cork, said the indigenous cereal sector will die if trends continue.

“We’re fighting for our livelihoods. If we are to have any chance of surviving, this has to stop. If we don’t do something, we are going to be an industry that’s gone out of this country before we know it,” Mr Cotter said.

He said there is no deficit in indigenous barley stocks adding: “To be bringing a boat in here today is absolutely just trying to tear the guts out of what’s left of our industry.

Enormous pressure

“There is obviously merchants buying it, and we are going to find out where they are, and we are going to put enormous pressure on farmers not to buy from those merchants,” he said.

“We are going broke. We are standing up and we are going to fight this.”

Mr Cotter said that like others he and his wife, who also works, were struggling to survive. “These are stressful times. We’re trying to pay the bills.”

The north Cork IFA county chairman said barley growers were seeking a minimum €135 per tonne for green barley grain, which he said would still see them operating at a loss.

“There will be war if we don’t get it,” he said.

IFA deputy president Richard Kennedy, who led the protest, which began at 8.30am and ended five hours later, accused barley brokers and importers of aggravating an already serious income crisis on Irish tillage farms.

"Despite repeated warnings from IFA at several high-level meetings with the EU Commission and the Irish Government, they have refused to acknowledge the gravity of the deepening income crisis on many tillage farms after four consecutive years of low grain prices below the cost of production, increasing costs and reducing direct/greening payments," Mr Kennedy said.

He called on the EU to “examine the cost of EU approved plant protection products [pesticides] which are priced significantly lower to growers in other major grain-producing regions across the world”.

IFA National Grain Committee chairman Liam Dunne claimed some imported barley grain was of "inferior quality" compared to home-produced grain.

“The Irish cereal sector is in danger of falling into terminal decline unless immediate and decisive action is taken to reverse the dramatic fall in incomes,” Mr Dunne said.

Livestock industry

“Irresponsible actions by the brokers/importers will accelerate the sector’s demise to the detriment of Ireland’s livestock industry,” Mr Dunne said.

Asked about the farmers’ claim, the Irish Grain and Feed Association (IGFA) said these are “extraordinary, difficult and challenging times”, but they added, “there is absolutely no way we can condone people disrupting unloading of boats and disrupting people’s lives like this”.

The Irish feed industry uses Irish grain in large quantities.

“The industry is here to support farmers, both tillage and livestock farmers, with modern risk-management techniques, information and knowledge-driven solutions.”

A UK grain trader source, said: “Nobody sets the price of grain except globally and it is demand and supply.

“Irish farmers are given opportunities to ‘sell forward’, and unfortunately, this year very, few this year took it. [Selling forward involves contracting to sell a specific quantity of grain at a cash price for delivery at a later date.] I don’t know who would have advised them not to sell, but they do get forward prices.

“It is unfortunate . . . when they should have been selling they didn’t sell, and that’s what’s happened to them now.”

The source claimed barley grain was selling for above €135 per tonne earlier in the year.

“Farmers would have made the decision not to sell. At the end of the day, farmers need to know their cost of production and they need to know what is a good price for them, and not for somebody else.

“You should know what you’re costs are and what your selling level is, and, every farmer’s selling level is different because every farmer has a different cost structure,” the source added.