THE RACE to become the next president of the Irish Farmers Association has got under way with the first candidate formally launching his campaign.
Traditionally, the campaign does not formally begin until the National Ploughing Championships in late September, but a first candidate has now formally declared.
Kilkenny farmer John Bryan runs an intensive beef farm at Cappagh, Inistioge.
Mr Bryan is a former garda and current Kilkenny IFA county chairman.
As former chairman of the national livestock committee, he was central to the highly-successful IFA/Irish Farmers Journal visit to Brazil to expose beef farming practices there.
It is expected there will be only one other candidate in the field to fill the position currently held by Pádraig Walshe, who completes his four-year term in December.
This will be Derek Deane of Tombeagh, Hacketstown, Co Carlow, who is deputy president of the 85,000-strong organisation.
He and his wife Mary took over the family farm in Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, in the 1970s, continuing a family tradition that stretches back to the 17th-century.
He has won a number of awards, including Development Farmer of the Year 1989 and overall winner of the Bord Bia Quality Beef Producer Award 2004.
Mr Deane, who has already announced his candidacy, will not launch his campaign until later in the year.
The outcome of the contest will be decided by the 940 branches of the IFA located in virtually every rural parish in the Republic.
Voting will take place in November and December, and the new president will formally take over in January.