Agriculture: Policy and Politics

Abstract

The publication of the Programme for Economic Expansion in 1958 does not stand as a watershed for Irish agriculture in the way that it does for much of the rest of the Irish economy and society. Rather, the post-1958 period has seen the continuation of several important long-term trends in Irish farming while, at the same time, a number of developments in the 1960s and 1970s — and, crucially, entry to the EC in 1973 — have both accelerated these trends and set new ones in motion. In this chapter our central concern is to examine the link between State policy and the polarisation of Irish agriculture into two sectors: one made up of a small number of viable and, in some cases, prosperous farms, the other of very many marginalised small farms. Our secondary aim is to look at how the development of agriculture has led to a new relationship between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors of Irish society. In both these respects we shall concentrate on the recent past, but setting such events in context will first require that we view Irish agriculture in a longer term perspective.