Which Irish organisation has an income of more than £5 million a year, employs 70 people full-time and has a reserve fund of more than £8 million? Further clues to its identity are that it has a Dublin headquarters, 12 regional offices and a bureau in Brussels. If you were also told that it has more than 80,000 members, in 949 branches, and supporters in almost every parish, you would be wrong in guessing that it is the GAA or the Fine Gael party.

What you have read is a profile of the Irish Farmers' Association, which has survived and prospered since it was established, in 1955, by farmers worried about their future. There has been a huge reduction in the number of farmers since then, but despite that - and a bruising near war with the government in the late 1960s - the IFA has gone from strength to strength.

From the street politics of the 1960s, which were modelled on civil-rights marches in the United States, to the imprisonment of some of its leading activists, the organisation has gained a respectability and sophistication that are unrivalled by any similar groups in the State. Few organisations have such direct access to government, and few use it as well. It can threaten governments despite the fact that its constitution describes it as a non-political, non-sectarian outfit.

Although the number of farmers has dropped to around 120,000, many of whom are part-timers, the IFA wields political clout across the Republic. Farmers tipped the balance in the Nice Treaty referendum, for example. Had the largest farm organisation been convinced enlargement was a good thing, the vote would probably have gone the other way. With the Farmers' Journal based in the same complex, the IFA has a ready vehicle for its views to be published, uncritically, every week.

A measure of its political success has been the move into mainstream politics of former presidents of the organisation. T.J. Maher, from Tipperary, was the first to make it to the European Parliament; he was followed by Paddy Lane. Alan Gillis, who led the organisation for two years, took the same path. The retiring president, Tom Parlon, who has had four gruelling years in the post, is being courted by all the political parties, and he has not ruled out continuing in public life, whether in the Dβil or Brussels.

The IFA has not forgotten its street credibility, though, and is able to bring tens of thousands of farmers onto the streets when it feels a protest is necessary.

But perhaps the IFA's greatest strength is its ability to adapt to changing times. The organisation now arranges for its rallies and other shows of strength to take place at weekends, for example. It recognised some time ago that more and more of its members, who pay a £40 subscription each year plus a small percentage of their income from stock, are now part-time, meaning they are unable to travel midweek.

The IFA has also encouraged cattle and sheep marts to be held in the evenings.

Falling farmer numbers pose a problem for the organisation, however. The latest predictions are that, by the end of the decade, there will be only 30,000 full-timer, who will be managing much larger operations.

Last year, the IFA had an operating deficit, of nearly £500,000, for the first time in many years. The loss was the result of its confrontation with meat factories, which it closed down for nearly a month early last year. The Irish Meat Association, which represents the factories, took legal action against the organisation, which ended up facing fines of £500,000 and half that again in legal costs. This turned out to be hardly enough to trouble the IFA, which revealed that its special reserve fund had a market value of as £8.4 million.

The IFA is expensive to run, however. Affiliation fees last year were £2.6 million, but the organisation spent more than £4.8 million, including more than £600,000 for communications and public-relations costs, in 2000. To cope with a diminishing membership, the organisation has decided to follow the example of Scandinavian farmers' groups, and is using its members' purchasing power to arrange special deals with a mobile-phone company. The principle will be extended to a number of financial services and to the bulk purchase of farm inputs.

An organisation of the size and complexity of the IFA must also have its troubles, however, and small farmers, in particular, tend to criticise it for looking after the large farmer rather than the smaller operator.

Some also criticise the meagre expenses that head office pays its officials for attending meetings, which mean it would be impossible for a poorly resourced farmer to become involved in the IFA at national level. The organisation rejects the criticism; if it was losing the support of small farmers, it says, there would be a drop in the number of branches on the west coast, but this has not happened.

Officials point out that one of the organisation's greatest achievements in recent years has been the Farm Assist scheme; it persuaded a reluctant Charlie McCreevy to top up farmers' incomes through special social-welfare payments.

Even those who oppose the IFA acknowledge that it is a formidable organisation - and one that will be around for some time to come.

The result of the IFA presidential election will be announced on December 18th