The Aontú leader and European election candidate Peadar Tóibín TD has called for emergency supports for farmers given the increase in the cost of fertiliser in recent years.
Speaking this week Deputy Tóibín said that at the start of last year the average bag of fertiliser cost 223% of what it did in 2010.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the associated sanctions taken by Ireland and Europe resulted in an unprecedented rise in the cost of fertiliser. Few politicians seemed interested in this at the time, but Aontú has been raising the matter persistently with the Minister for Agriculture in the Dáil”.
“The scale of the inflation in terms of the cost of fertiliser was absolutely colossal. Farmers around the country were left with two options - either fork out the money that they didn’t have, or else refrain from using fertiliser altogether,” he said.
“The rise in cost, I believe, actually suited this Government’s green agenda, and I suspect that’s why they were so reluctant to tackle the problem. For those farmers who did pay up, they’re now stuck in losses and debt. For those who did without, they’re not making profit either because their grass yield, the number of bales of hay and silage they produced from their fields was down big time on previous years as a result”.
“While I welcome the recent reduction in the cost and inflation, I think the damage has been done - farmers across the country are neck deep in debt, farms are not turning over profits in many instances, and farming is becoming less viable as a sole means of income. Young people are emigrating at a collossal rate, and fewer and fewer are obtaining the green cert. This is heartbreaking for farmers, especially those whose families have farmed that land since before the famine. We need emergency supports now, for the next few years the government should subsidise the cost of fertiliser - we should have fertiliser credits for farmers in the same way that we had electricity credits during the inflation crisis in terms of energy,” concluded Deputy Tóibín
