Agriculture continues to play a major role in the Irish economy, providing employment for upwards of 300,000 people and sustaining the livelihoods of many more in rural and urban Ireland. That makes its welfare a national issue. This week's protests about declining farm incomes, which culminate in Dublin today, have certainly stimulated a widespread and valuable national discussion. They have united farming organisations in the face of adverse political and public criticism. But they have been much less successful in clarifying their objectives and showing how best their demands should be tackled. Mr John Dillon's militancy appeals more to his own members than to the wider national public.
The elementary facts concerning farm incomes are still in dispute at the end of a week's protesting. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, was heavily criticised by farm leaders for using an average gross income figure of €45,000 since they say such valid costs as feedstuffs, fertilisers and seeds must be deducted from it; doing so, one gets a figure of €15,800 compared to the average industrial wage of around €26,000. Average figures are in any case grossly misleading in the farming sector, which is highly differentiated according to size and quality of farm and whether farming is full time or not. Average family incomes for the 40,000 full time farmers are reckoned at €30,959; this is down perhaps 10 per cent in the last year - but it increased substantially in previous ones and farming is a cyclical business.
One of the real achievements of smaller farm families in recent years has been to sustain family income by off-farm employment in the growing industrial and service economy. This creates increasingly varied interests for those working on the land, together with the existing distinctions between beef, dairy, sheep and tillage farmers. The evolution of EU subsidies means that up to 70 per cent of farm income now comes by way of a cheque in the post. It is more and more geared to environmental and safe food objectives, especially for smaller or more marginal holdings. Farm leaders and the Government strenuously resist the European Commission's proposals to decouple subsidies from production; but they are tied into a system severely constrained by quotas and export rebates - and therefore subject to minimal competitive disciplines, discouraging growth.
Thus a deep structural problem is contained within the incomes crisis highlighted by the farmers this week. Their scattergun list of 10 demands published yesterday addresses the latter question much more than the former one. Change is inevitable in the context of the Mid-Term Review of the CAP and the WTO Round, which will set the parameters for the next generation. A special commission on farming to conduct a radical rethink of policy makes much sense - but to be convincing it must be genuinely national and not dominated by the strongest farming lobbies.