Peter Mernagh spoke to Aontú leader, Peadar Tóibín, and by-election candidate, Jim Codd, as they met some of the Wexford’s farmers at today’s mart in New Ross.
There is a crisis in farming. Factories have enormous buying power while farmers have practically no influence on price. A small number of factories and supermarket multiples are making hundreds of millions of euro of profit while forcing farmers to supply their beef at a loss.
There are 4,000 farms in County Wexford. It’s estimated that for every €100 these farms earn, €73 is directly spent back into the local economy. Unfortunately, recent analyses indicate that only 1,400 of these farms are currently independently economically sustainable.
