FG urges end to winter ploughing ban

FINE GAEL’S new spokesman on agriculture Andrew Doyle has backed the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) call for the ban on winter ploughing to be lifted.

Farmers’ concerns about EU regulations on nitrates were raised with cross-party TDs and Senators by the association in Dublin yesterday. Mr Doyle said the inflexibility of “calendar farming” was causing problems for farmers, with conditions during the last two winters highlighting what he described as the ineffectiveness of the system.

Also among those who attended the session were Fianna Fáil Ministers of State Seán Connick and Dara Calleary, the chairman of the Oireachtas agriculture committee Johnny Brady, and Labour’s agriculture spokesman, Seán Sherlock. An IFA spokesman said no Green representatives attended the event in the Mansion House.

IFA president John Bryan said farmers expected Oireachtas members to work with them over the summer to remove “impractical restrictions”, which he said imposed unnecessary costs on farming and curtailed the sector’s capacity to expand.