The National Ploughing Championships enjoyed a record first-day attendance as almost 100,000 people descended on the Co Offaly site on Tuesday.
The figure is significantly up on last year when 77,000 people attended the first day of the event. The record-breaking attendance was confirmed by the National Ploughing Association head Anna May McHugh.
The 85th annual championships at the site in Screggan, Tullamore, Co Offaly was officially opened by President Michael D Higgins. As Europe's largest outdoor exhibition, it features 1,700 exhibitors on the almost 800-acre site.
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National Ploughing Association chairman PJ Lynam said “if you went to every stand and spent one minute at it, it would take you five working days, it has got that big”. He praised the gardaí, Offaly County Council, local residents and landowners for their assistance and understanding.
Over the coming three days, 26 national ploughing champions will be crowned at the event. The competitors will go on to represent Ireland at the World Ploughing Championships in Kenya, said Mr Lynam.
Music
Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina were welcomed to the site by Ms McHugh. They were joined at the opening by Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan, Mr Lynam, Offaly County Council Chairman Cllr Eddie Fitzpatrick and other dignitaries. Members of Killeigh Comhaltas and children from St Coleman’s NS in nearby Mucklagh provided music for the opening.
Praising those involved in the championships, Mr Higgins described the three-day event as the “Olympics of the land” and said the event was “an enduring testimony to this vibrancy of our farming sector”.
He used the occasion to highlight the difficulties facing farmers and to emphasise the importance of rural Ireland. Mr Higgins described family farms as “the backbone of our rural communities” and said “they must be enabled to prosper for generations to come.” However he said “we have arrived at a critical juncture when this is far from guaranteed.”
"Throughout Europe, there has been a general drift from the land since the early 1960s. The farming population is ageing at a very alarming pace, farms are becoming bigger and fewer. The challenges facing our farmers are many, and they are well-known to those who attend 'the ploughing'," he remarked.
Challenges
Among the challenges, Mr Higgins cited the difficulty of accessing credit and land for younger farmers, international competition, price volatility, as well at the sometimes conflicting demands of productivity and profitability.
“Farm life, farm communities, rural society, are not just sectors like any other, producing commodities for the market. They need to be sustained with robust public policies, good planning, as well as targeted and adequate incentives,” said Mr Higgins.
“We need no less, then, than a renewed vision for the future of Irish and European family farming,” he told the gathering.
Mr Higgins said “there can be no vibrant rural communities without thriving family farms. We must, as a society, ensure that our farming men and women are enabled to continue to carry out what is one of the most ancient, one of the most important and beautiful human activities on earth: the tending of the land and the cultivation of its fruits, from which all of our food is drawn.”
Meanwhile, organisers were pleased with the weather and the traffic management plan at the previously untested Screggan site.