Irish farm leaders have been accused of "bad-mouthing" their own industry by the Minister for Agriculture & Food, Mr Walsh.

"I know of no other group that has such a negative attitude towards their own occupation," said Mr Walsh.

"It's bad for morale. It is bad for the morale of young people and for Teagasc courses," he added.

The Minister was speaking as he opened the Agricultural Science Association (ASA) annual conference in Kilkenny yesterday.

He said "there was a continuous drone" of complaint from farm leaders.

Mr Walsh said a few years ago the general trend was to get away from traditional jobs such as the civil service and farming. That was during the era of IT. However, that bubble had now burst.

He said people were now going back to the shelter of traditional jobs and he thought that farm leaders should be far more positive about their own industry.

Mr Walsh, who would not name the farm leaders involved, said he had no difficulty with farmers asking him for things but he did not like the negativity.

Mr Pat O'Rourke, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, commenting on the Minister's statement, said: "Less preaching and more delivery. That is what we want from the Minister."

Mr Walsh's comments were also rejected by the president of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), Mr John Dillon, who said it appeared that Mr Walsh did not want to deal with the income crisis facing farmers.

Mr Walsh had earlier told the conference of agriculture graduates that he was disappointed that no agreement had emerged at the world trade negotiations.

On CAP reform, the Minister said he hoped to make a decision on decoupling premiums from production before Christmas, following consultations with all parties.

Farmer reaction to date was "pretty near 100 per cent in favour of full decoupling".

Much of the debate at the conference focused on the rationalisation of the dairy industry, where Mr John Moloney, group managing director of Glanbia, said he did not believe the Irish economy could shift completely from commodity focus to a totally value-added proposition.

On the thorny question of dairy co-op mergers which was recommended in the Prospectus report, Mr Moloney said his company had already reorganised and, in terms of scale, its Ballyragget plant was the largest of its size in terms of its daily manufacturing capacity.

"In this regard, we would put the emphasis on co-operation and shared assets and joint ventures in internationally competitive base processing facilities, rather than on mergers or amalgamation," he said.

Mr Ed Prendergast, chief executive of Lakeland Dairies, said co-operation among dairy processors at regional level must precede the national consolidation goals arising from the Prospectus report.

"The ambition of large-scale consolidation within the dairy industry has obvious benefits but it is not a black and white issue and it is clearly not something which will happen overnight," he said.

There was sharp disagreement between the secretary general of the Department of Agriculture & Food, Mr John Malone, and Ms Mary Revelt, minister counsellor for agricultural affairs to the US mission to the world trade talks, on the levels of subsidisation which are given to US and EU farmers.

Ms Revelt maintained that Europe's farmers were more heavily subsidised than their US counterparts, but Mr Malone said this was not the case.

The outgoing president of the association, Mr Pat Cahill, said despite disproportionate debate, it was worth remembering that only 5 per cent of European consumers' spend on food consisted of subsidies.