The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, accompanied by the party's agriculture spokesman, Mr Billy Timmins, and Mr Tom Hayes TD, will meet the IFA president, Mr John Dillon, and senior executives today.
They will discuss weather difficulties, disadvantaged areas payments, efforts to lift milk and cattle prices, the bringing forward of direct payments, the nitrates directive and special areas of conservation.
Mr Kenny said: "Few people seem to realise the severity and extent of the agricultural crisis now facing the country.
"Almost 1,000 operators registered as farmers have gone out of existence each year in Mayo for the past 10 years."
Cattle marts in many parts of the country were booked out until May 2003 with dairy herd sales, which demonstrated the extent of the drift from agriculture as a business, he said.
"The vote of rural Ireland, and of farmers in particular, will have a significant bearing on the outcome of the forthcoming Nice referendum. "Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy will go ahead in any event," said Mr Kenny.
"It will therefore be critical that the Government of Ireland is represented centrally in that decision- making process and that our influence is in no way diminished by virtue of a No vote. I have consistently pointed out that many farming problems could actually be dealt with by Government were they so willing," Mr Kenny said.
These problems had nothing to do with the Nice Treaty, and it was critical that the farming community distinguished between the importance of staying with Europe for the country's sake as against using the referendum as a protest against the Government's reneging on promises made in the general election.