Over the past quarter-century the North Connacht Farmers' Co-operative has played a key role in the economic life of the west. With a turnover of £165 million last year, and jobs for almost 500 people, its success was justifiably a cause for celebration at its 25th anniversary bash in Castlebar on Friday. What marks it out as special, however, is the co-op's willingness to look beyond the interests of its members and see the big picture. Farmers are often portrayed as a selfish lot: the NCF record tells a different story.
Its support for mushroom, timber, fish-processing and tourism projects has helped create jobs for many people who would not normally be associated with a farmers' co-op. It rescued four failed livestock marts and helped numerous other projects, acting as a regional development agency long before the need for one was recognised or accepted by central government.
In 1990 it helped get the innovative Ceide Fields interpretative centre off the ground with £50,000 in seed capital; the same year it contributed £20,000 towards the visitor centre at Foxford Woollen Mills.
It gave £50,000 towards the hospice movement in north Connacht and invested in an ailing timber co-operative in Corr na Mona, Co Galway. ECC Teo is now one of the biggest employers in Joyce Country, between Lough Mask and Lough Corrib.
The NCF was set up just six months before Ireland joined the EEC. It soon found itself at loggerheads with the establishment at home and in Brussels.
In 1974 it became the first Irish farming group to demonstrate at EEC institutions in Luxembourg and Brussels during a campaign to highlight a crisis in the cattle sector.
Its robust, and at times radical, critique of government policies has continued since then, sometimes at its own expense. Speakers at the anniversary dinner on Friday ventilated contemporary concerns about regional policy, concerns that are becoming more acute as the end of EU largesse looms ever nearer.
The co-op's chief executive, Mr Michael Farrell, warned of the difficulties ahead.
"It is very obvious that the country as a whole has benefited from the national Objective One status, but our region has not received equitable treatment," he said. "This has not been the fault of the EU but rather of our government, whose policies have favoured the better advantaged areas of the country.
"Earlier this week the EU Commission produced a glowing assessment of the Irish economy and its prospects. The obvious success of the economy under the stimulus provided by funding made available under the terms of Objective One status is well observed in Brussels.
"What is less perceived is that the Celtic Tiger has not manifested its presence in our region and this is a fact that NCF is determined to bring to the attention of our Government."
Agenda 2000, the blueprint for the future development of the EU, includes proposals which threaten the future of disadvantaged areas, Mr Farrell continued.
"The Government response to these proposals will be vital and we will be strongly promoting the acceptance of measures which favour rural development and insisting on the maintenance of adequate levels of headage payments in the disadvantaged areas . . . We have little time to secure our futures before the budget-devouring enlargement of the EU to the east commences."