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2 months ago | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
The new Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and the Marine Martin Heydon wants to increase payments to farmers, but is just as focused on making supports more accessible. Responding to why there are no spending targets for farm schemes in the Programme for Government, he said that “farmers can absolutely rest assured the determination is to continue on a trajectory of increasing incomes”.
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2 months ago | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
The current rules around animal transport should be enforced before new ones are made, Commissioner Christophe Hansen told the IFA AGM last Thursday. “I think it is very important to be strict on the rules that already exist, and to enforce them where they are not respected, before going a step further. “I think there will be a big ally in the European Parliament for a pragmatic approach that will allow Irish producers to access properly the EU internal market”.
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2 months ago | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
The new Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and the Marine Martin Heydon wants to change the outlook away from what is, in his own words, a “pretty bleak narrative at the minute”.
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2 months ago | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
It’s been a busy week. It started last Saturday evening, when I attended Wexford Irish Farmers' Association’s (IFA) 70th anniversary dinner. That was an evening for looking back in appreciation of the representations made by the generations that went before us. Recognition for farmers as stakeholders in society is taken for granted nowadays, but those rights were hard won by farmers being prepared to go to jail rather than be ignored by Government in 1966.
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2 months ago | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
It’s been a busy week. It started last Saturday evening, when I attended Wexford IFA’s 70th anniversary dinner. That was an evening for looking back in appreciation of the representations made by the generations that went before us. Recognition for farmers as stakeholders in society is taken for granted nowadays, but those rights were hard won by farmers being prepared to go to jail rather than be ignored by Government back in 1966.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
There is a serious geographic disparity in the new Government, with five ministers in Dublin, six more in the rest of Leinster and three in Munster, plus the chief whip. That leaves only one member of cabinet between the eight counties of Connacht and Ulster. That man is Dara Calleary, who returns to cabinet following his brief sojourn as Minister for Agriculture in 2020, when he resigned following his attendance at the infamous Golfgate dinner during COVID lockdown.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
Christophe Hansen wants to "be a boots on the ground" European Commissioner for Agriculture. Addressing the IFA AGM on Thursday, he said: "I come from a farm myself, I was the youngest of seven children, so it was my oldest brother who took over the farm. "Until the age of 20, when I studied abroad, I was on the farm everyday with my brother. I know a lot about Luxembourgish farming, and Belgian farming (they had an out farm in Belgium), but no so much about Irish farming.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
Martin Heydon is the new Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. As widely expected, the Kildare man was chosen to succeed Charlie McConalogue in one of the hottest seats in cabinet and will steer the course forward for Ireland's 130,000 family farms over the next (potentially) five years. His appointment will be confirmed shortly by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who himself was elected earlier on Thursday following on from Wednesday's chaos in the Dáil.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
While the new cabinet has not been confirmed at the time of going to print, Martin Heydon is the only name being discussed for Minister for Agriculture. The 46 year-old will be stepping up from his Minister of State role, but it’s a role he has been training for all his life in one sense. Background
Heydon is a farmer, having attended Kildalton Agricultural College and completed his Green Cert.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
farmersjournal.ie | Pat O'Toole
The Brexit divorceOn 23 June 2016, Irish farmers went to bed planning a day cutting silage, tedding hay or spraying crops in the beautiful mid-summer weather. The following morning, they woke to discover the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union in what was a shock referendum result. Brexit, which until now had been little more than a niggling concern, was suddenly a grim reality for Irish farmers.
