Last Monday’s (December 3rd) ICMSA AGM held at the Limerick Radisson saw Denis Drennan, give his inaugural AGM address as president of the state’s specialist dairy farmers’ organisation representing some 15,000-odd family farms across the country.
In a wide-ranging and hard-hitting speech, Mr Drennan singled out the contradiction that has Irish and EU farmers ‘under the EU hammer’ on falling emissions while the self-same EU conducts negotiations with the Mercosur states that are growing exponentially.
He cited statistics showing that that EU and Irish farmers are making progress and the Commission’s DG Agriculture data verified this but it was pointless if the idea of importing beef or any other farm products from Mercosur states was even entertained: “In 1990-2017, EU Agri reduced CO2 emissions by 19%, Brazil was up 50%. In same period, EU reduced NO2 emissions from chemical fertiliser by 9%, Brazil up a staggering 549%. I’ll say that again because you probably think you misheard me: Brazil Nitrogen emissions from fertiliser was up 549%!”
In front of hundreds of attendees that included the General Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Brendan Gleeson, Ornua CEO, Conor Galvin and Bord Bia’s Jim O’Toole, the ICMSA President doubled down on questions around the funding and subvention of NGOs like An Taisce and other environmental groups.
“Our accounts are published here today for all to see. Our members provide all the funding. ICMSA believes that people who are involved in lobbying and sit on government appointed Committees should provide a detailed analysis of their income sources. The Government should legislate accordingly: who is funding who? Everybody should have to account publicly for their funding.
“ICMSA is a notice party to the An Taisce High Court action on the NAP. It’s quite astonishing that the farmers are the only parties to the case who are not getting their expenses covered to some degree by the Irish State. But we – the people in this room and right across the State – through our taxation are helping to ‘pick up the tab’ for An Taisce’s legal bills.
“This legal case actually represents the Irish State subsidising An Taisce to take a legal challenge against the Irish State. The only ones in the court paying their own way are the farmers – and we’ll go on paying it for as long as it takes, and we have the resources to do that.”
 ICMSA AGM held at the Limerick Radisson saw Denis Drennan, give his inaugural AGM address as president of the state’s specialist dairy farmers’ organisation representing some 15,000-odd family farms across the country.){kind=link}