The next minister for agriculture needs to be better than the outgoing minister, according to Michael Murphy, the organiser of the Positive Farmers conference.

Speaking at the dairy farmers’ conference in Cork, Murphy said he had been weaned on very good Irish ministers for agriculture, but that agriculture has been downgraded within the cabinet in recent years.

“Farm orgs should be saying to Micheál Martin, the next Taoiseach, that we’ve had a less than satisfactory minister for agriculture the last time, please give us a better one this time,” he said.

The new minister, he said, needs to have “a good understanding of what farming is about and will be influential in terms of representing a sensible Irish view in Brussels.”

“They need to be respected in Brussels and will challenge the regulatory situation.

“The new commissioner with agriculture has more of a connection with agriculture and sees that farming is over-regulated. I think he will make change, so I’m optimistic on that.”

He also called on the sector to spend more money promoting farming. “It’s an honourable profession and we’re doing a bloody good job and at the moment there’s a lot of sh*te being talked. Farmers are tremendously valuable citizens.

“We’re at a period where we need very strong messages as there are gobsh*tes seeking to give advice to people. Who should you trust?

You should trust good research and good advisors or farmers with long experience and success who are trying to help you put more money in your pocket, rather than people whose main job it is to extract money out of your pocket

"You should trust good research and good advisors or farmers with long experience and success who are trying to help you put more money in your pocket, rather than people whose main job it is to extract money out of your pocket.”

Murphy also called on Moorepark to improve its messaging. “The Moorepark message is excellent, but it needs to be made extremely strongly at the moment.”

Describing the Teagasc facility as a “national treasure”, he said at the moment the messages coming from it are not strong enough.

“I think they need to be much stronger. It might not be popular…a lot of farmers are uncertain about what to do. We need strong leadership.

"Sometimes leadership means you have to take decision that might be unpopular now but over time will be right.”

At ground level, dairy farmers, he said, need to remember that “grass to cash at low cost” is the number one rule of dairy farming.

Low cost, he said, is four to five times more important than production per cow.

“Run a resilient, low-cost, grass-based system. We are not just farming to produce milk, we are producing milk as a means of having a rich, fulfilling, family-type life.”

Reporting on:independent.ie