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On Thursday the 1st of February in Luxembourg Square, Brussels; the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) will protest for dignified living and working conditions. This protest joins with many others taking place across the EU looking for fairness for farmers. Macra President Ms Elaine Houlihan said “The frustrations being felt by farmers across the EU have been well flagged, yet these frustrations are being ignored. Food production is in crisis, with 6.5% of farmers in the EU below the age of 35, there is little hope for the future of an industry that will age into obsolescence”. Macra has...

Freemount Macra, from County Cork, has been named overall Macra Club of the Year at this year’s Club of the Year awards, which are sponsored by National Broadband Ireland (NBI). The long standing award is held annually on the October bank holiday weekend at the Macra Rally, which took place this year in the Shearwater Hotel, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway and was hosted by Galway and Roscommon Macra. This year’s competition featured additional regional awards, as well as an award for best emerging club. As part of the Club of the Year Competition, awards for Best New Macra Member are presented...

The persistently low level of young farmers entering farming is a concern for the future of European agriculture and rural areas according to a report titled ‘generational renewal in the EU farms of the future.’   Welcoming the production of the report, Macra president Elaine Houlihan said “to address the crisis in Irish and European agriculture, young farmers need be front and centre to all agricultural policy and budgetary decisions.  We need to move from talking and reporting about the lack of young farmers to achieving action and putting greater resources behind the issue.”  The report by the EU Parliament Agriculture...

This afternoon saw the announcement of the 2024 budget by the government, in this budget from a farming perspective we saw many supports that have been in existence for several years being renewed.  These supports though essential do not address the issues that we face as a food producing nation in relation to our ability to change to meet the challenges being faces by all of us in relation to the environment. Macra had lobbied hard for the introduction of a pilot succession scheme to facilitate the transfer of land production from one generation to the next.  This transfer would...

A number of important agricultural reliefs which were due to expire at the end of 2023 have been extended to December 2028, a move welcomed by Macra.   Elaine Houlihan, Macra National President, said that ‘the taxation measures relating to farming in the budget, including the consanguinity relief and accelerated capital allowances for farm safety equipment, are welcomed and provide recognition that a suite of measures, including taxation, that address generational renewal in Irish rural farming communities is vital in ensuring that our system of family farms is passed onto the next generation.”   Increasing the lifetime threshold for young farmer reliefs under...