More than 70,000 people made it to the National Ploughing Championships in Grangeford, Co Carlow, yesterday under grey skies which at times spilled rain on the visitors.
However, rural folk tend to take a day out when the weather is not so good. Good weather keeps them at home doing chores which require dry times.
The second day of the ploughing championships saw an increase in the launch of products and policies, the most important yesterday being a document from the Irish Farmers Association on its involvement in Anti-Racist Workplace Week.
The deputy president of the organisation, Mr Ruaidhrí Deasy, said many migrant workers were employed on farms around the country on a full-time and seasonal basis.
They played a major role in helping farmers to maintain productivity in a context of labour shortages, he said.
"Cultural diversity is relatively new to Ireland and the farm environment provides the same challenges that exist to cultural integration as any other workplace.
"By becoming involved in this initiative, the IFA is highlighting the good examples of cultural integration that exists in the agri-sector and encouraging best practice in all farm businesses," he said.
Anti-Racist Workplace Week begins on November 1st.
The deputy leader of the Green Party, Ms Mary White, issued a statement calling on the Government and the EU to introduce flexibility into the rules governing the production of food by small-scale food producers.
She said the current regulations were hitting this sector because the rules were geared more to multinational companies than the small-scale companies.
Now was the time to develop this speciality food sector and with the growth of farmers markets, to ensure the survival of the small scale producers, making sure food safety was to the fore at all times.
Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, issued findings which showed the State's best-run beef farms made a profit of more than €900 a hectare (€360 an acre) in 2003.
It said the analysis of profitability on almost 200 beef farms, using the Teagasc eProfit Monitor, showed that profits on suckling farms averaged €560/ha while profits on non-beef farms averaged €490/ha.
According to Mr Bernard Smyth, Teagasc's chief drystock adviser, the sample of almost 200 farms would be representative of the top 25 per cent of beef farms in the country.
He said the highest performing farms, with profits exceeding €900/ha, would be representative of 25 per cent of beef farms.
A key barometer of income was the proportion of EU premiums held by farmers as a profit and the top one-third of suckling (beef) farms held 104 per cent of their premiums as profit, indicating they were making a positive income from actual farming.
In contrast, Mr Smyth said, just over 40 per cent of premiums payments were retained as profit on the bottom one-third of suckler farms. The balance was used to cover costs of production.
However, it was not all serious business on the grounds yesterday where the most appropriately dressed woman competition was won by Ms Patricia Shorten from Castletroy, Co Limerick.
The most appropriately dressed man was named as Mr Michael Whelton, Clonakilty, Co Cork. A new competition, the Jolly Ploughgirl, was won by Lorna Murphy (12) from Tullow, Co Carlow. The Jolly Ploughboy went to eight-year-old Philip Hickey from Nenagh, Co Tipperary.