I recently attended an event at MTU Cork Campus on a shared vision for agriculture and food. The workshop, called ’Strengthening Rural Life: from Farm to Community’, was centred around the role of rural communities at the heart of Ireland’s agricultural future. It brought together policy makers, community leaders, farmers, educators and innovators to explore how agriculture can remain a powerhouse of economic vitality and its role in the long-term resilience of rural areas.
Following a welcoming address by MTU’s Prof Maggie Cusack, the opening address with a European perspective was given by MEP Billy Kelleher and later the attendees were addressed by Minister Jerry Buttimer TD.
There were three lively panel sessions, which discussed the ‘Impact of the Common Agricultural Policy post-2027’, ‘Balancing Specialisation and Diversification’ and lastly the ‘Future of Farming’.
The panel sessions saw West Cork represented by Enda Buckley from Carbery Group and two farmer representatives, John O’Brien (Barryroe) and Vanessa Kiely O’Connor (Innishannon), all bringing their individual perspectives and agri-industry experience into the discussions.
During the panel discussions, a point raised about Irish society caught my attention. Why do Irish consumers have an expectation that nutritious Irish food should be cheap to purchase and why are mainstream media outlets so obsessed with the cost of bread, milk and butter, to the point of insinuating that families will starve if the price of those staples goes up. Has society prioritised their income on having the latest iPhone, Sky, Netflix and a long list of subscriptions ahead of their food spend?
For days after the event this has been on my mind: Why does society think food should be cheap? Does the Irish public even know the costs associated with producing food and do they understand the work it entails to get their food to the table?
I remember laughing at a story I heard years ago about a group of school children in America who were asked where chocolate milk comes from: A child responded with “brown cows”. Has Irish society now reached this level of disconnect with food, agriculture and its farming community?
A few years ago, if you were asked to visualise a farmer, what was the first image that came to mind? Probably some stereotypical image of an older man with a peak-cap and wax jacket! We can definitely say that this image is not as popular today and has been replaced by sponsored beanie hats, sleeveless jackets and work pants with handy pockets. Thankfully the latest farmer style can be seen on both men and women farmers today so one would be inclined to believe that everyone is aware that times have changed and so have farmers and farming.
The question today is: What is society’s perception of a farmer and farming? We must remember that some people only see a farmer when RTE broadcasts snippets from ploughing championships or reports on farmers’ protests on the news. It wasn’t so long ago that many city residents had relatives or coworkers connected to family farms, people who could share firsthand knowledge about food production and life on the farm. Today, that connection seems to be gradually fading, and the gap continues to widen.
Unfortunately, we see a large disconnect with the farming community in society in general. The daily mainstream media outlets rarely have agri-rural life news unless it’s a story of some quirky person who has downed tools from their trendy office job in Dublin and has suddenly realised that they can grow a vegetable or rear an animal and sell their produce to a customer…who knew that could be done!?
I’m proud to say that our West Cork People paper has always had local farming stories and events dispersed alongside all other community news. This has not been the case with the daily national papers; in some cases the farming news has been in the form of a token farming supplement one day a week with the target audience being the farming community and agri-businesses who advertise goods and services.
Agriculture now appears to be siloed by politicians and society and the question we should ask ourselves is not how we got to this juncture but how we, as a farming community, communicate how valuable we are to Irish society.
It’s difficult, but farm families must look past the criticism from so-called academic experts who claim to know how farming should be done despite having no firsthand experience working on a farm.
The real change makers are the people who make their livelihoods on the land and who, for generations, have displayed resilience and a constant ability to adapt to whatever climate and environmental changes they face. One would be led to believe that farmers are incapable of changing work practices even though history will tell you that this is far from the truth. Geographical location, utilising our local resources and route to market for viability has shaped the decisions on the type of farming that farm families have engaged in through the generations.
Yes, previous government policies steered farmers toward increasing production in certain sectors, which has resulted in the decline of others. The government must now take responsibility for addressing both the environmental and economic costs created by those policies.
Ireland should be proud that it has an indigenous industry that has consistently been exporting more than 90 per cent of dairy and beef annually. Bord Bia reports that in 2025, €19 billion was the value of Ireland’s agri-food exports. Reporting that meat and livestock brought in over €5 billion, dairy €7.3b, seafood €635m, horticulture and cereals €330m, prepared consumer foods €3.4b and drinks in the region of €2b. An ICOS (Irish Co-operative Organisation Society) report says that €1 of dairy exports represents a 90 cent spend in the Irish economy.
To quote John Donoghue from IFAC: “Feeding 50 million people every year is no small achievement.”
If that doesn’t deserve societal recognition, it is a sad state of affairs!
The Minister for Agriculture, along with the agri-industry, farm organisations, and farmers, must find a clear and compelling way to communicate the success story of modern Irish farming. They need to highlight how today’s farming systems have evolved from the days of back-breaking manual labour through the adoption of labour-saving machinery, advanced technologies, and the effective use of science and research to support all types of farming systems.
Irish agriculture is the envy of many other countries and our high-quality products are highly sought after by consumers worldwide. Perhaps Bord Bia and a few Ministers need to do fewer international junkets promoting Irish food abroad and instead work their way around our own country communicating our wonderful Irish agricultural story and educating Irish citizens so they understand where their food comes from and the costs associated from farm to fork.
