The National and World Ploughing Championships came back on track yesterday with the sun arriving shortly before the President, Mary McAleese, came to officially open the world event at Grangeford, Co Carlow.
Wearing a three-quarter length aqua blue coat and boots, the President was treated to an hour-long ceremony of music, dance and pageant when the 28 countries taking part lined up under their flags at the opening ceremony.
She said the championships captivate Irish people in their tens of thousands and they came no matter what the weather. "They do business and they have a ball," she said. They came in their thousands yesterday, an estimated 60,000 of them and they did their business as well.
In the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association tent they held a seminar on the levels of breakdown and divorce in the farming population which has become a very serious issue.
The general secretary of the ICMSA, Ciarán Dolan, said that in 2002, the last year figures were available, there were 1,300 divorced or separated farmers and the divorce rate was 2.7 per cent. He said that in that year there were 277 divorced farmers and a further 171 who had remarried following dissolution from a previous marriage. He said that working on the 2002 census, which showed about 18,000 people had divorced in Ireland and 1.7 per cent were farmers, it would follow that an additional 314 farmers had divorced since 2002.
Elsewhere, it was green, renewable energy that was catching the attention of the visitors and the Energy Growers' Association launched an attack on supply contracts which do not allow farmers retain carbon credits for growing them.
"Energy crops must be treated differently if growers are to retain confidence. Gone are the days when growers will simply sign up for short term aid or processor contract that put farmers at the bottom of the economic chain," said Ann Kehoe, national director of the association.
Elsewhere, the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, Mary Wallace, called on farmers contemplating the future to think about diversifying into forestry.
Speaking at the forestry village and Department of Agriculture and Teagasc stands, the Minister said the package of supports was the most attractive that had ever been offered. They included the availability of 100 per cent grants and substantial tax-free annual premiums.
She said farmers could significantly boost their incomes by converting part of their land to forestry. Sinn Féin's Martin Ferris, issued a party document on the need to maintain its sugar beet industry, which said that the industry could remain viable if sugar was refined as sugar, or as syrup for the production of ethanol to be used as biofuel.
On the wider political front, it was all sweetness and joy when Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte held a joint press conference.
While most of the questions were on the current political issues facing the Taoiseach, both men agreed that the ploughing championships put the best of Ireland on display and was a wonderful occasion.
Today the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern and the Tánaiste, Michael McDowell, will visit, and a major media influx is expected at the grounds.