A Church of Ireland minister has said that the biblical principles of fair pay and fair trade should be applied to farming.

Reverend Lester Scott, who is based in Co. Carlow, is the rector of the Fenagh-Myshall-Aghade-Ardoyne group of parishes in the Diocese of Leighlin.

The minister, who grew up on a dairy farm in Cashel, Co. Tipperary, said he recently wrote on the subject of farming from a Christian perspective, including Bible extracts.

Rev. Scott said he is very aware of the pressures facing the sector, with one dairy farmer recently telling him that his fertiliser bill for the coming year is €40,000.

The minister said that the Bible is clear that people should be paid for their work and if the principle was applied in the farming community, it would mean that farmers would at least get the national minimum wage of €10.20 per hour.

Rev. Scott said that this would translate to almost €25,500 per year based on a 48 hour working week; he noted that most farmers work longer than that.

He said the figure would be in line with the average farm income for 2021 outlined by Teagasc.

The cleric claimed that the rise in material and production costs had little to do with Covid-19 or Brexit but the "greedy racketeering of individuals and economic actors who are manipulating current contingencies for the proverbial quick buck".

Rev. Scott also believes that a fair trade symbol, similar to that used for farmers in the developing world, should be applied to produce here to show farmers got a fair price for their work.

"Farmers who build up productive dairy herds, while cognisant of the necessary adaptations pertaining to climate change; farmers who raise fine livestock, and yet for all that end up losing money on all their efforts.

"There is something inherently wrong, inegalitarian and unethical about that," the minister said.

"If we had fair trade in our own country, many of the current problems and fears about the future would disappear," Scott noted.