Storm Éowyn has caused “devastating damage” to horticultural businesses, with many growers facing losses potentially running to thousands of euro, the Irish Farmers’ Association’s (IFA) fruit and vegetable chair warned today (Monday, January 27).
Niall McCormack said that Storm Éowyn had caused “significant damage” to horticultural businesses and that it hit at “a vulnerable time for growers as tunnels and glasses have been planted with young plants for the upcoming season”.
One producer Annie Dalton, from Cashel, described to Agriland just how badly impacted her business – Annie’s Organic Farm – was as a result of the storm.
She operates three 100ft polytunnels, and two smaller polytunnels but during the storm last Friday night, one of the tunnels was completely destroyed.
“It’s not just me, it’s the whole country. One of my tunnels got severely damaged, well ruined actually,” she said.
Dalton believes that the government should be doing more to protect growers who have been impacted by the storm.
“It’s a bad situation because you can’t get insurance for polytunnels.”
“It’s hard enough to get anybody to do anything to fix small things, now that there’s huge storm damage to polytunnels
“It’s going to be impossible to get someone to fix it,” she said.
In Dalton’s case, the damage to her polytunnel will impact her both in the short term, and in the long term.
“It will set us back. We have planned rotations every year. This year, we would have had peppers and cucumbers and stuff going into that tunnel. It’s going to set back our rotation.
“Also, I can’t physically fix that myself. It’s going to be impossible to get anybody to fix it.
“We would have been putting more salad and crops in there, but it’s going to set us back in the amount of produce we can produce until we can get out into the fields,” Dalton added.
Storm Éowyn
According to the IFA even after the clean up operation is finished Storm Éowyn will have a lasting impact on many horticultural businesses this year.
McCormack said: “Between collapsed growing structures and subsequent loss of plants, there are significant financial losses.
“Growers are assessing the damage, which will mount to thousands in many cases”.
The IFA fruit and vegetable chair said farmers had “worked tirelessly through the storm to protect their businesses, but they were overwhelmed by the high winds”.
“Although some of the businesses had insurance to cover some structural losses, in general most producers cannot obtain cover for items such as polytunnels, crops and glasshouses,” McCormack warned.
The IFA is now calling on the government to provide support for horticulture producers .
“We cannot afford to take food production for granted.
“The government needs to stand up and support this sector, which provides more than 7,000 directly in rural areas and is worth nearly €600 million to the national economy,” McCormack added.