Overhyping politicians must tackle farm income problem mep

A local MEP has blamed politicians “overhyping” the potential for Irish agriculture for stoking the “current crisis” of deteriorating farm incomes.
Without naming names Independent MEP Marian Harkin said there were politicians over the last five years who “tended to exaggerate the prospects” for Irish agriculture and have “a major responsibility” to farmers to lay out plans to boost incomes. Ms Harkin further branded action by the European Commission as inadequate.
She was speaking in advance of a demonstration by EU farmers, to coincide with the extraordinary Farm Council meeting in Brussels on this Monday.
“Over the past few years we have seen political decisions, public policy decisions and political pronouncements both at EU level and national level which have had a significant impact on the development of the current crisis. In Ireland, this included the overhyping of the potential for agricultural production alongside the ending of quotas for milk production. At European level, we had a political decision to introduce sanctions on Russia and the consequent Russian ban on EU agricultural goods. This was a political decision but many farmers bore the brunt of this decision both directly and indirectly. There is now a huge onus on politicians both at EU and National level to bring forward the emergency measures necessary to stabilise the current situation. We can’t wash our hands like Pontius Pilate and say - ‘these are world prices, there is an oversupply in the market’ when in fact public policy actions have contributed to the current crisis.

‘Limited action’
“The limited action taken by the European Commission so far is inadequate and a short term rise in intervention prices is badly needed to help stabilise the dairy market as well as the need to introduce extra supports for the livestock sector. The extraordinary Farm Council meeting scheduled for September 7 must deal with the short term as well as the long term issues. The most important long term issue still remains, whereby, farmers are not getting a fair return within the food supply chain and we can no longer dodge this issue at EU level. In the short term, however, immediate action needs to be taken on aids to private storage.
“The Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney should take a leaf out of the Belgian government’s book who have co-ordinated ‘a stabilisation mechanism’ to integrate the impacts of price volatility across Belgium’s farm sectors. Similarly the French government have drawn up a package of measures to assist livestock farmers whose incomes have plummeted. Responsibility for dealing with this crisis has to be shared at national as well as EU level and an immediate response is needed,” she insisted.