Sir, – An issue that must be addressed regarding the single farm payment is the exclusion of a whole sector of farming, namely horticulture. We are told by our farm leaders that the objective of the supports is to enable Irish producers to remain viable in the face of imports from outside the EU, where for reasons, climatic, social, economic, etc, products can be produced and sent to us for much less than we can produce them here.
Surely the most disadvantaged must be the horticultural products, which everyone sees on their supermarket shelves every day, now mostly foreign?
There is also the question of winning the hearts and minds of those who believe they are paying for the EU supports. The quickest way to get them on side is by presenting them on a daily basis with more and higher quality home-produced products. The same applies to energy cropping. – Yours, etc,
NICHOLAS GRUBB,
Clogheen, Co Tipperary.