Time to reward farmers’ efforts

THROUGHOUT the Covid-19 pandemic so far, our farmers have continued – in spite of obstacles such as rural isolation – to produce food for the nation and this has become better appreciated by consumers, especially during the lockdown months when more people were at home and cooking for themselves. You can read about how things are for farmers and those in agri-business generally now in the midst of the pandemic, and how they hope to cope with other threats to their livelihoods, such as a no-deal Brexit, climate change and CAP reform, in our autumn West Cork Farming magazine in this week’s edition of The Southern Star.

Having kept the show on the road, so to speak, the efforts of our local farmers deserve to be recognised and, while some awards schemes have fallen by the wayside this year due to the pandemic, The Southern Star and the Celtic Ross Hotel felt it was important to keep their annual West Cork Farming Awards going, albeit in a different format to reflect the times we live in – with the presentation ceremony to be live-streamed online in early November.

Our faithful sponsors have endorsed this decision by, unhesitatingly, giving the awards their backing once again, which we are most appreciative of. Nominations for the sixth annual West Cork Farming Awards are being accepted up to Wednesday next, October 14th, by completing and submitting the form in the West Cork Farming magazine or they can be made online by logging on to southernstar.ie/farmingawards