This article is from page 51 of the 2007-08-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 51 JPG
FORMER Green Party Leader and Minister for Food and Horticulture at the Department of Agriculture and Food, Trevor Sargent, has called on a partnership approach to be adopted to help farmers deal with challenges which result from the bad weather conditions.
With growth back my more than 50 per cent in many areas, farmers are facing serious problems, with more and more seasonal vegetable crops now being imported from abroad.
“Poor weather conditions bring huge uncertainty to harvesting and planting operations. Producers have
shown great resilience but they need some assurance about market pros- pects and returns if they are to con- tinue investing and supplying local products to the consumer in a sector where seasonality provides diversity and added interest,” he said.
Minister Sargent pointed out that the recent EU reform of the fruit and vegetable sector will bring new Opportunities to support producer organisations in production/sup- ply planning and in the promotion of greater consumption of fruit and vegetables, particularly by young people.
The new arrangements will also provide aid for producer organisa-
tions that undertake measures to prevent or manage crises such as ad- verse weather conditions.
“Nevertheless, the market relation- ship between the producers, retail sector and consumer is the key to the development of this important sec- tor,’ he continued.
‘Partnership arrangements _ be- tween producers and retailers will work best where they take account of seasonal variation in supply and of the need for continued investment in the sector to benefit the consumer seeking local food.”
Land conditions are so bad in some parts of Clare that first cuts of silage are still to be harvested, a situation
which could prompt a massive esca- lation in feed cost if a shortage hits WONKA OL Kode
Official figures obtained by The Clare People from Met Eireann re- veal that rain fall levels in County Clare were more than 40 per cent higher last month than the June av- erage, The figures also revealed that Clare had already matched it average July rainfall last Thursday, July 19.
Besides the under foot conditions, farmer have also being prevented from spreading fertiliser because of the heavy rainfalls. This lack of fer- tiliser spreading could impact on the condition of second cuts across the county.