• A much-reduced seed price of €520/t (delivered) for all varieties. • Free haulage ex-yard for growers’ grain (delivered via lorry), where branch were closed in recent years. • Retention of the current split of brewing/distilling contract per grower “as is” with the potential for additional contracts to be awarded to all growers for Crop 2018 • That all barley purchased by Boortmalt for crop 2018 will be under contract.
Kennedy added: “It is critically important to get a price out ahead of
the planting season so that growers can plan their cropping programme accordingly. The fixed-price offer is currently ahead of that offered for new crop dried feeding barley for harvest 2018 collection”. “The delivered farm seed price of €520/t across all varieties is
significantly reduced on last season and is interest free until harvest. A free lorry collection service will be provided by the company to growers where branches were closed in recent years and where growers purchase, from Boortmalt, plant protection products to the value of €50/acre or greater during the season.” He concluded: “All of these developments are very positive
improvements for all our malting barley growers and I would like to acknowledge the proactive part that the Boortmalt team played in making this possible.”
IN MY OPINION … RICHARD HALLERON Gove shows true vision at Oxford Farming Conference Irish agri-food will, no doubt, be breathing a sigh of relief, given Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Secretary Michael Gove’s comments to this year’s Oxford Farming Conference. Specifically, he said that the UK will seek to secure a free trade
deal with the EU 27 while also inferring that continuing, levy-free access for Irish beef on to the British market would be included within this measure. The trade implications for Ireland’s agri food sectors, emanating from the Brexit deal are, obviously, of paramount importance. However,
Gove also used his speech to flesh-out many of the policy principles that will underpin future British governments’ commitment to agriculture. And a number of these are worth taking full note of on this side of the Irish Sea A case in point was Gove’s very adept juxta positioning of production
agriculture with public health, citing the proven nutritional link to conditions such as cancer and diabetes as verification for this stance. All of this has echoes of the statements made repeatedly by UCD’s Professor Patrick Wall to the effect that farmers are now in the health business, as opposed to being mere producers of food. And all of this is so true. The one missing link is that of ensuring
sustainable farmgate prices. The good news for farmers in the UK, however, is that the benefits of delivering a fully transparent food chain have also been fully noted by the DEFRA Secretary. And, to this end, he has instructed his ministerial colleague George Eustice to get to the bottom of the buying-in policies operated by all the major UK multiples.
Let’s hope that European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural
Development, Phil Hogan, can get his act together in a similar vein. One of the other encouraging facets to Gove’s speech was his
commitment to driving food production standards in the UK upwards, from a sustainability, conservation and environmental protection perspective. The history books will show that the UK was, primarily, responsible
for pushing forward the agenda on environmental protection within the EU over the past thirty years or so. My understanding is that a free-trade deal between the UK and
the EU27 requires the continuing harmonisation of food production standards. So we could arrive at a situation, by default, where the UK would be driving the food production agenda in the EU well into the future. This in turn, would be good news for Ireland. Bord Bia’s Origin Green
initiative would then have the opportunity to truly reflect the potential of the Irish food sector to deliver on the vision of sustainable intensification. This is a principle that was strongly championed by Simon Coveney during his time as Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
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