They ‘wouldn’t know a heifer from a Hoover’

The president of the ICMSA, Pat McCormack, says there is an onus on media to establish the credentials of those purporting to speak on how farming should change to become more sustainable.

Speaking to his association’s AGM in Thomond Park and via Zoom, Mr McCormack said that the lack of real knowledge on display in matters concerning farming and the environment in the general media was “quite staggering” and would certainly not be tolerated on any other subject on which commentators hold forth.

The ICMSA president said that given the enormity of what was at stake, farmers, and the rural communities in which they live and work, were entitled to hold the general media to a reasonable standard.

He said that “time and again… vaguely defined ‘environmental activists’ were given airtime on both state and commercial broadcasters to thrash farmers and by extension wider rural communities without ever having to demonstrate any working knowledge of farming or food production”.

Mr McCormack said that having debated many of these activists for years, it was his firm conviction that most wouldn’t know a heifer from a Hoover.

He also said that there were few legitimate questions on the funding of several environmental NGOs and it was in everyone’s interest that NGOs concerned revealed in full the source of their funding – including from all arms of the state – and specifically whether any originated in corporations involved in the manufacture of so-called ‘synthetic’ meats and milks.