A triumpnant Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr John Dillon, yesterday warned that the tractor protest to Dublin was only the start of a campaign for the survival of the family farm.
He told his organisation's annual general meeting, in the Green Isle Hotel, that the demonstration had been an outstanding success and had sent a strong political message to the Government.
Mr Dillon, marking the end of his first year in office, said the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, had gone into "denial" on farm incomes, and had introduced household income as his solution.
"I hit him hard on this. Imagine the uproar from the unions if the Government tried to tell the Garda 'Your income is alright, because your wife is a teacher or a nurse'.
"Or if Joe Walsh told Government officials 'Your income is €15,000, but sure your husband or wife has a job and is earning additional income'. The unions would not stand for that and neither will the farmers," he told delegates.
Recalling another "victory", Mr Dillon said beef factories had not expected the IFA to take them on last autumn on the returns farmers were receiving.
He said the factories had tried to drive down prices and the IFA had named and shamed the worst payers in the cattle price league in the campaign. "We took on the big players, not just across the table but at the factory gates. We showed the factories they could not dictate autumn cattle prices and pocket our premiums.
"Overall, IFA's determined action in standing up to the factories last year was worth an average of €25 per head on every animal sold in 2002. That is real delivery by IFA and real money for livestock farmers."
Mr Dillon said the slide in milk prices had been more difficult to reverse because of international and other competition and the EU pulling back from international markets. The IFA had taken on the co-ops and other processors and because of that milk prices would be 1.4 cent a litre (5p a gallon) lower than they were now.
He warned the co-operatives and processors that farmers were now demanding a minimum price of 28 cent a litre as a minimum floor price.
"That is IFA's bottom line on milk prices and I am saying there must be ongoing ruthless efficiencies in processing costs this year and in the years ahead," he said.
Mr Dillon said he was warning processors of all farming produce that farmers must get an economic return from their product and they would not allow prices to be pushed below the cost of production.
On the CAP reforms, he called for a national campaign, led by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to defend Irish interests in Europe and at the World Trade Organisation.
If the Fischler reforms were introduced, Ireland would lose €500 million in exports and up to 40,000 farmers would be forced out of full-time farming.
The winners from the World Trade Organisation agreement would not be the developing countries of Africa and the Third World but the cattle rancher from South America, the big herd owners in New Zealand and the grain farmers in North America, he said.