Jim Power: Challenges are stacking up down on the farm
This is the year that the powerful farming lobby became considerably more fragmented, resulting in the very fractious picketing of meat factories; the intimidation of Bord Bia personnel at the annual ploughing championships; and the picketing of retail distribution centres.
While some of these were exploited for dubious political purposes, frustration and hopelessness are growing down on the farm.
The advanced estimates of farm incomes published recently by the CSO suggest that the operating surplus for farmers increased by 4% this year.
All well and good, one might think, but this modest increase followed a decline of 16.8% in 2018, and the operating surplus in 2019 was 13.5% lower than 2017. The surplus in 2017 was a record high.
Furthermore, a breakdown of the surplus shows sharp sectoral variances.
The value of output from cattle producers declined by 12.3%; the value of pig production increased by 14.4%; the value of crops declined by 0.8%; and the rich relatives in the dairy sector had an increase of 4.9%.
A positive development in 2019 was a return to more normal weather, after an horrendous 2018.
This resulted in a decline of 14.8% in the cost of feedstuffs that farmers had to purchase.
This contributed to the improvement in farm incomes in 2019, but it would be foolhardy to depend on the weather to boost farm incomes.
All in all, 2019 will go down as a very challenging year for many farmers.
Unfortunately, it is not obvious what can be done to make a real and lasting impact on the fortunes of farmers and farming.
Farmers are primary producers, and, like most primary producers at the bottom of the supply chain, they do not have much power.
Furthermore, as a producer of primary products, they are exposed to the vagaries of markets and to increased price volatility in an increasingly globalised agricultural commodity market.
The farming supply chain consists of farmers at the bottom; the processors in the middle; and the retailers at the top.
The retailers are the key drivers of what flows down through the supply chain.
Over the past 10 years, for example, the average price of beef at the retail level has increased by just 2.2%, but the average price of pork has fallen by 16.5%, and poultry has fallen by 22.2%.
This price compression falls primarily on the shoulders of the primary producer, whose input costs continue to rise.
This situation is not unique to Ireland and is a characteristic of the UK, also, where we sell most of our beef.
It is not clear what can be done about any of this.
Can retailers be prevented from using these products as loss leaders and can consumers be forced to pay more for food? I somehow doubt it.
Consumers should be prepared to pay a higher price for food to guarantee quality and the sustainability of domestic production.
However, many consumers just want cheap food, regardless of the consequences.
Data this week showed that Irish consumers now spend just 8.7% of their income on food, which is the second-lowest in the EU.
It is hard to be terribly optimistic about the prospects for a significant cohort of Irish farmers, particularly on the beef side.
However, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) believes that the global population will have grown to 9.1bn people by 2050, which translates into an extra 2.3bn mouths to be fed and global food production will have to expand by 70% to do so.
God help the climate.
In the more immediate term, the outbreak of African swine fever in Asia should lend some support to Irish beef and pork prices.
On the downside, Irish farmers will have CAP changes to worry about over the next couple of years, against a background of the likely loss of UK contributions to the EU budget, and the primacy that European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is attaching to climate change.
