Statement from Farmers Against FoxHunting

national | environment | press release Tuesday December 22, 2009 01:00 by Anti-foxhunting

With Minister John Gormley poised to ban stag hunting, the group known as Farmers Against Foxhunting and Trespass (FAFT) has just issued the following statement calling for the abolition of all hunting with hounds in Ireland on the grounds that it threatens their livelihoods (crops, property destroyed etc) and criticises the IFA for failing to come down on the side of farmers menaced by hunting.

Statement from Philip Lynch, Chairman, Farmers Against Foxhunting and Trespass (FAFT)

I was sent a copy of an advertisement published in a Meath newspaper. It was offering horses for rent with the local foxhunt. This kind of activity is criminal: It is nothing more than inviting people to trespass and vandalise their neighbours’ crops and fences, damaging farmers’livestock and putting them at risk of being sued by all and sundry. Am I glad I do not have a neighbour with no shame like that!

As if that was not enough in these tough times, another one arrived with an article from the Meath Chronicle dated October 31st. This quoted a statement that the IFA was in favour of foxhunting and backing the Ward Union Stag Hunt against Minister John Gormley’s proposed ban.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As a farmer, an IFA chairman and someone on HQ committees for over twenty years I know that no farmer wants his land and his livelihood damaged. None of the great racehorse breeders want them next or near their studs. They ring up members of FAFT to stop them coming into their area. Nobody wants the foxhunts- not in villages and not roads causing accidents and injury.

This is 2009, not 1809, and we farmers are no longer tenants at the will of the landlord. Food production is up five-fold since World War II and we are now commercial farmers. No trespassers are welcome. Industry won’t allow you in work areas; there are signs up that have to be obeyed. Why do the hunt riff-raff think they can walk on farmers and country people’s rights?

Just because they may have the local District Justice, senior councils, solicitors, and other self-elevated persons riding with them does not mean they can vandalise people’s property. Who is this David Wilkinson to be telling all and sundry that the IFA is in favour of hunting, which is just vandalising farms?

We farmers are at our wits end trying to keep them out. Farmers in all parts of the country have had to shoot dogs to stop them harming farm animals. We have a bill of E32,000 against a hunt for the destruction of a whole herd of pedigree Suffolk sheep. Another farmer is owed for two heifers that were run unto a road where a car crashed into them. Others are owed for the destruction of winter crops and grassland. Have you hunters no conscience…? Pay up, we say.

Is the IFA anti-farmer? How did this so-called Countryside Alliance Committee worm its way into the IFA woodwork? It is not elected by members so it has no mandate from farmers. It is nothing more than a con job foisted on hard working people… money dangled in front of money-hungry staff- 30 pieces of silver selling the farmers down he Swannie.

IFA…you should be ashamed…leaving the farmer to defend his own farm, his crops, his livestock, and his livelihood on his own. Unless the new IFA President makes drastic changes, why oh why “keep a dog and bark yourself”?

We farmers nationwide support John Gormley 100% to ban all arrogant hunting vandals from our farms. It is against all health regulations…for the TB scheme and to ensure healthy stock there must be no disease-carrying dogs.

We could all be happy: farmers, the IFA, and hunts if drag hunting were pursued on the hunters’ own lands, racecourses etc. This is our compromise…and let the hunters pay for all their damage.

Let’s ban fox hunting and stag hunting as they have done in England, Scotland, and Wales…and get these hunters off OUR lands.

To members of all hunts we say: your vandalism is not acceptable.

Philip P, Lynch,
Chairman,
Farmers Against Fox Hunting and Trespass