[The following is extracted from the final chapter of Joe Johnston's 'Irish Agriculture in Transition', published in 1951 by Basil Blackwell (Oxford) and Hodges Figgis (Dublin). It represented his vision of the 'window of opportunity' for Irish agriculture in the period of post-emergency reconstruction, various feasible aspects of which had been explored in the second section of the book.

It remains unfulfilled, but continues to offer an opportunity for development in a future, more 'green', political environment, in which the current embryonic organic farming, eco-village and local currency movements might begin to thrive synergetically.

For ease of screen display I have divided some of the longer paragraphs. RJ May 2000.]

Some valuable suggestions...... were made by Senator Richards Orpen, in a paper on "Post-War Planning in Irish Agriculture," which concluded a series of articles by different authors in the "Irish Independent" in 1943. He advocates a system of what he calls "Economic Farm Units," each one serving a region of some 1,500 acres.

In a paper read by the present writer to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, on 27th November, 1947, his suggestions were adopted with some modifications. It will be convenient at this stage to quote at length from the paper referred to.

The variety of our climate, soil, and geographical conditions is such that probably no two 'Economic Farm Units' or Co-operative Farming Societies would be identical in function and activities. A working example already exists. The Mitchelstown Creamery exploits a farm of 160 acres at Mitchelstown connection with its cheese factory. It maintains a large pool of agricultural machinery, not only for use on the collective farm but for hiring out to its members for use in their own farms. It grinds corn for the members, and maintains a store in which it sells agricultural requisites. Its total turnover now exceeds £1 million per annum, and it is undoubtedly the dominant factor in the prosperity of the rural community within a radius of five or ten miles.

For the maximum development of the possibilities inherent in this movement, it is desirable that the collective farm should be conveniently near the creamery which owns it. Unfortunately in some cases they are some miles apart. It is also desirable that a big house or mansion should be available on the farm to accommodate the farm manager and the celibate working staff. Life in common is in itself a valuable education.

Given suitable residential accommodation, such farms could in some cases become perhaps high schools, analogous to the Danish Folk Schools. A floating population of young farmers could thus pass through them and return to their respective neighbourhoods with their vision enlarged, their imagination quickened, and their sympathies deepened.

The Mitchelstown Farm has no mansion on it. The former abode of the Earls of Kingston did not survive till our day. This limits its possibilities of development in the cultural and educational sense, which is highly desirable. But such as it is, it may be regarded, at least in the economic sense, as a good working model of the kind of 'Economic Farm Unit' which Captain Orpen envisages for every appropriate centre in our heterogeneous agricultural regions.

Needless to say, if our agriculture were fully organised on these lines, there would be as much variety in the functions and activities of the various Economic Farm Units as there is variety in the character of our agricultural resources and in the geographical and human conditions of the various areas. Making allowance for this, the general picture may he given in Captain Orpen's own words:--

"The method which looks most promising as regards this country may be called the 'Economic Farm Unit.' I propose to describe this system in some detail, as it has features of interest peculiar in itself. The Unit is composed of a centre and subsidiary parts, and the area may be anything from one thousand to twenty thousand acres, depending on local circumstances.

"First let us take the Centre. This may be a large farm or a group of smaller farms willing to co-operate with one another, or it may in certain cases be a central processing organisation according to the farming practised in the area. We will consider first the Centre in a tillage area where the chief cash crop is grain. The Centre will have the necessary equipment for growing and handling grain in bulk, tractors, tillage, harvesting and thrashing implements (or 'combines' and grain-dryers).

"The Centre will be able to produce grain far cheaper and with greater certainty than the small farmer, or Subsidiary, with inadequate equipment and everything against him except an excess of unpaid family labour. The Centre will not be handicapped as the larger farmer is today, because it can call on the excess labour on the Subsidiary Farm to assist in the harvest.

"Turning to the Subsidiary Farm, grain may be grown economically on some of these, and the equipment available at the Centre be used to help out the Subsidiary's operations. Other, Subsidiaries, who have hitherto wasted their land and strength in producing grain crops uneconomically, can turn to more remunerative occupations because they can now buy their requirements of grain at ex-farm prices within the Unit.

"We must remember that in the past the subsistence farmer could buy relatively little, as he produced next to nothing for exchange. Now, too, the Subsidiary could devote his activities to production of young stock, dairy, fruit, vegetables, poultry and eggs, bees and flowers. He has a market at his door, as the Unit either processes the produce or distributes it to the consuming area or to factories. The Unit can provide rapid transport to the town and railhead, and at the same time draw farm requirements for distribution to the Subsidiaries.

"In this type of set-up of, say, fifteen thousand acres, no farmer is more than two and a half miles, as the crow flies, from the Centre, the conveyance of goods and produce by the Subsidiary is no longer an excessive burden, and yet the produce from an Economic Farm Unit of this size would warrant efficient transport facilities, provided as part of the equipment of the unit.

"The Centre would purchase in bulk much of the requirements of the Subsidiary at present bought piecemeal, and would provide seed correctly dried and stored, manures, etc. Technical services and advice would form part of the duties of the Centre, as a region of fifteen thousand acres can afford to carry expert technicians quite beyond the means of even the largest farms. Repair work hitherto sent away could now be done on the spot.

"The Centre would process all produce bought in from the Subsidiaries, and as far as possible distribute it in a condition ready for the consumer. Thus the Centre would give employment to many persons who for various reasons were unsuited to field work, and who previously migrated from the countryside, thereby breaking up the family, and causing that serious social and economic phenomenon, the 'flight to the town' Farm grouping on the lines indicated would tend to a more varied life in rural areas.

"The 'Economic Farm Unit; would be a legal personality, representing a close co-operative association of a nucleus of workers, under expert leadership, and a looser federation with all the independently-owned farms in the neighbourhood. The latter are called by Captain Orpen 'Subsidiary Farms', but the term is perhaps misleading. Legally they would be just as independent as the members of any farmers' cooperative society now are. The essential difference would be that the latter could now concentrate their whole energies on production in their own farms, and on extending their productive efforts in new, desirable directions, since all their commercial and processing, and most of their transport problems, would be taken care of by the 'Economic Farm Unit'

"The latter would cultivate the central farm, which might well contain from 500 to 1,000 acres, using all the most modern labour-economising devices and implements. It would maintain a surplus of tractor-power and agricultural machines, and skilled personnel to service them. These would be available to supplement the deficiencies of neighbouring farmer members occupying an area of perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 acres. The manpower of the whole area would be strategically mobilisable at a moment's notice. At times, surplus labour from farm members' families would work in the central farm, to meet a temporary seasonal need, or in the various works of long-term improvement on which labour in slack seasons is always usefully occupied in a really progressive farm.

"At other times labour from farm members' families would follow the machines and skilled personnel of the Economic Farm Unit around to work on the farms of farmer members. In fact they would go on doing very much what they do at present in the threshing season, only it would be done in a fully-organised, comprehensive manner, and would touch many other useful activities besides threshing. The mutual helpfulness of neighbouring farmers, small, medium, and large, is one of the pleasantest features of Irish rural life. The fact that it does exist, in an informal, unorganised way, is, I think, definite proof that the typical Irish farmer is not an incurably isolationist individualist. All that is necessary, if we are to create a brave new world in the Irish countryside, is to build intelligently and imaginatively on this most happy fact of Irish human nature.

"Once the Economic Farm Unit got going in any neighbourhood the activities taking place on the various farms round about would be modified and suitably adjusted. The central farm would doubtless maintain a pig-breeding establishment. Just as at Mitchelstown, it could arrange for finishing some thousands of pigs in the most economic manner. Many of these it would doubtless rear on its own premises. Butt also, as at Mitchelstown, it would buy in bonhams reared by the members. The latter would thus tend to specialise in the rearing of bonhams rather than the finishing of pigs.

"Similarly, the individual farm members could specialise in rearing young cattle, passing them on to the central farm at a suitable age. Horticulture and fruit growing would be encouraged, for the central farm would maintain expensive spraying apparatus, and undertake the processing (by quick freeze and other appropriate methods) of members' vegetables and fruit. There would, in fact, be a continuous nexus of reciprocal exchanges between members and the Economic Farm Unit.

"Labour services and the hire of machinery would figure in these exchanges, as well as the buying of agricultural requisites from the central store, and the sale of agricultural produce to the Economic Farm Unit. No money need pass with every act of exchange. All that would be necessary would be a record of each transaction and an understanding about its price. It would be a strange thing (once the system was fully developed) if at the end a quarter or a year the central organisation did not owe members in most cases substantial amounts. These would be drawn on as required by individual family circumstances. In fact, the central organisation would function as an automatic savings bank for its members as well as being their commercial and processing agency.

"If one could imagine some hundreds of such farm units operating in every agricultural area in Eire (saturation point would be reached with, perhaps, not more than 400 or 500 such centres) there would remain no problem of agricultural credit for the individual farmer. The State could if necessary finance the Economic Farm Units through the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Initially, finance from this source would certainly be needed in every area where there was no financially strong co-operative creamery to undertake this function.

"But: once the system got under way, and showed promise of success, the ordinary commercial banks would be only too glad to provide any additional finance that might be necessary. The rate at which they could afford to lend to such an organisation would compare very favourably with the rate they require from the ordinary farmer borrower. Given good management and a healthy co-operative spirit, the risk to the bank making a loan to the Economic Farm Unit would be quite negligible.

"By methods such as these an intensification and diversification of agricultural production could be stimulated widely. The high standard of production already attained in some of our well-run large-scale privately owned farms reflects itself in a high density of employment per 100 acres and in increasing local rural population...... "

After giving some statistics in support of the above Orpen thesis, JJ continues:

From 5 to 10 persons or more per hundred acres of crops and pasture are regularly employed on our comparatively few farms of any size in which intensive agricultural production is carried on. This is far above the general average for the whole country on 'medium' and large farms.

If our salutary agricultural revolution went so far as to double the manpower associated with 'large' farms, an additional 93,000 workers would be needed on such farms. The present ratio is 1.56 persons engaged to 100 acres of total area on such farms. To increase that ratio to 3 would need 93,000 additional workers, as we have just seen.

In fact, if a vigorous attempt were made to establish numerous Economic Farm Centres they would soon run into a manpower bottleneck, except to the extent that surplus family labour would be attracted from smaller farms and permanently associated with them. Such a strategic 'redeployment' of available agricultural labour would be highly desirable in any case.

As a step in the direction of the Orpen model, JJ in an addendum to his final chapter outlined a 'Clearing House Model' for local integration of synergetic agricultural efforts. This is perhaps worth a look in the contemporary post-CAP context. RJ August 2003.

More than 200 years ago Bishop Berkeley queried:

"Whether the industry of our people employed in foreign lands, while our own are left uncultivated, be not a great loss to the country?"

And also:--

"Whether it would not be much better for us if, instead of sending our men abroad, we would draw men from the neighbouring countries to cultivate our own?"

These queries are still topical.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 2003+