Around 50 people attended a Macra meeting in Co. Limerick last night (Wednesday, January 15) to share their concerns around generational renewal in farming.

The event at the Woodlands Hotel, Adare is among three public consultations on generational renewal being hosted by the farm organisation this week.

Macra national president Elaine Houlihan told the meeting that generational renewal is a "massive priority" for the organisation.

"What we're trying to do here tonight is get information from every perspective to see what do we need to put forward in our submission to the Commission on Generational Renewal. There's right or wrong answer to a question," she told the room.

Maria Snell, senior research and policy executive at Macra, said that there is a lot of discussion currently about generational renewal in agriculture and the crisis it is in.

"We get a lot of statistics thrown at us, but generational renewal is more than the statistics. For us, it's about looking at young farmers and how we can support people to get into agriculture in a meaningful way.

"We're passionate about protecting the family farm model, that's at the heart of our structure of agriculture and it's something we want to preserve and see evolve into the future," she said.

Snell added that the Macra consultation would also focus on ensuring that rural communities are vibrant and attractive places to live.

The meeting, which was open to all farmers, saw those in attendance placed into several groups to discuss four key areas: access to land; access to finance; knowledge exchange and social sustainability.

Brian Leonard, lecturer in the School of Agriculture at University College Dublin (UCD) who also researches generational renewal, facilitated the discussion.

Those in attendance highlighted how the high cost of buying and leasing land for young farmers, and the stress associated with that is a major obstacle.

One table mentioned the issue of people who do not make their main income from farming buying up land as an investment.

Others felt that the "personal touch" is gone from banks and how it can be hard to access finance for young farmers coming from "a low base".

The meeting heard a call for knowledge transfer (KT) programme to be "reimagined" to make it more interactive, rather than a "tick-box exercise" to get a payment.

A mentor scheme whereby older farmers could share their experience and skills with the younger generation was suggested as a possible solution.

On the topic of social sustainability, one farmer said that "rural life is dying out" as people cannot afford to build or rent a house in rural areas.

Young people emigrating, a lack of resources and planning were also cited as some of the challenges facing rural Ireland.

The feedback from each table will now be used to shape the Macra submission to the Commission on Generational Renewal.

The final Macra public consultation meeting will take place at 7:30p.m tonight (Thursday, January 16) at Hotel Kilkenny, 69 John Street, Kilkenny.