DESPITE difficult weather conditions since Thursday, more than 120,000 people have visited the National and World Ploughing Championships in Carlow this week.
Over 50,000 people were at Oakpark yesterday, although some heavy showers of rain turned the exhibition area into a mud slide. But the three miles of special track, which last saw service in the Gulf War to assist allied tanks over the desert sands, did as good a job in Carlow.
The first of the world ploughing competitions got under way yesterday with competitors from 28 countries bursting the Carlow sod to win the world title. Already the experts are predicting that Martin Kehoe from Wexford is well placed to hold on to his title.
Also in the running are brothers Don and Des Wright from Northern Ireland and Roger Jordan from New Zealand.
The competitors had to contend with wheel slip after a particularly bad shower just after the start but all were satisfied with the quality of the earth.
Meanwhile, the president of the Irish Farmers Association, Mr John Donnelly, launched a strong defence of the Common Agricultural Policy. Mr Donnelly, who has been under some pressure since the farming protest in Killarney at the meeting of EU agriculture ministers, said farming and its critical importance to rural Ireland and the economy was being misunderstood.
"Agriculture is worth over £3.8 billion annually to the economy. For each of our 150,000 farmers, there is another job outside farming which depends on it," he said. He said he was concerned that a basic misunderstanding of the principles of the CAP were in danger of widening the urban/rural divide.
Senator John Dardis, the PD agriculture spokesman, said every effort must be made to resist EU plans to make cereal farmers pay the cost of the beef crisis.
In the national loy competitions, the winner was Bernard Casey from Longford and the women's prize was won by Mary Moore from Westmeath. The international vintage competition was won by Hugh Davies from Wales with second place going to Alan Milne from Scotland.
The ploughing resumes today at 10.30 a.m.