Bruton criticises European farming policies

European agriculture policies have driven young people out of farming in Ireland, leaving the farm population here older than at any time in history, according to the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton.

At a party forum on food and farming yesterday, Mr Bruton said there was something "radically wrong" with policies, both European and domestic, which had created a situation in which "agricultural colleges are emptying and the age profile of farming is rising all the time".

This trend emerged because there had been "too much politics and too little business, too many objectives and too little focus" in agricultural policy-making. As a result, Irish farmers had a "stop/go" EU experience, with dramatic increases in prices and production followed by "cutbacks, quotas, set-asides and cheques in the post".

Mr Bruton added: "The farmer, from being the master of his or her own destiny, became the subject of multi-functional policies dreamed up by social engineers, reacting to the conflicting demands of the political marketplace in the European Parliament and elsewhere."

The big productivity gains made in agriculture had resulted exclusively in "dramatically reduced consumer food prices," rather than raised farm incomes, he added. The need now was for farming to "integrate vertically, so that it gains enough market power to retain at least some of the fruits of farm productivity for on-farm income improvement and on farm investment".

Mr Bruton said his vision for the future of farming was one in which the farmer was back in charge of his or her own destiny: "The politicians should make the rules for the markets, but once the rules are made they should not change too often."

In the globally liberalised trade young people would again want to be farmers, Mr Bruton predicted. "Agricultural policy must concentrate on its own job. That job is one of identifying and exploiting the comparative advantage of Irish agricultural land, in a way that will produce high-income, exciting and interesting lives for the maximum number of young, well-educated, professional farmers. Our present policy does not do that."