UFU ‘does not take the YFCU seriously’ says frustrated president (1953)

Stating that the clubs must try to “do more on the educational side”, Mr Green added that if they did not receive assistance “then they would ask why this was so?”

“I feel the Ulster Farmers’ Union does not take the Young Farmers’ Clubs seriously. We do not get the support that we should,” he said.

Mr Green stressed the necessity for an expansion of membership and hard work, which, he said, “came easier if they took advantage of scientific research and educational activities. Referring to the recent election”.

He said: “If you sit back and let the politicians do something then heaven help you.”

He said that he had not heard one constructive word among all the speeches made during the election, “and only about 50 per cent of the people”, he said, “took an interest in it”.

“You will not get any better politicians or get any help from the government unless you do something for yourselves. You must demand it by action and not by word of mouth,” said Mr Green.

“The past 50 years,” he said, “have shown great progress in farming conditions and a much better standard of living. Unfortunately nobody can say with certainty that those conditions were secured to the farming community.

“If they are to be maintained, our people must learn to increase their output from their existing acres.”

Continuing Mr Green said: “The solving of the problem does not lie with increasing agricultural education alone, but by increasing general education and giving it a bias for rural science in the case of the rural dweller.”

The dinner inaugurated a three-day training course for leaders and officials of the Young Farmers’ Clubs.

The secretary of the YFCU, Mr A McAlister, read a letter from the president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, Mr George Irvine, in which he said that the training given to YFC members was important because it was “to them that the parent body looked for new blood and leaders”.

He added: “The union had already benefited from receiving within its ranks former YFC members. Their services are greatly appreciated by their colleagues in the union.”

An address was also given by Mr J G Calvert, chairman of the Standing Conference of Youth Organisations, who said that the YFC, was “one of the chief influences in keeping the more, alert and intelligent young people in the countryside”.

Professor J Morrison, of the Ministry of Agriculture Research Farm, Hillsborough, and Mr J C Baird, chief inspector, Ministry of Agriculture and vice-president of the YFC also spoke.

Farmers’ call for fatstock marketing board: The council of the National Farmers’ Union, in London during this week in 1953, gave detailed consideration to the implication of the Government’s White Paper on the decontrol of food and marketing of agricultural produce, and passed the following resolution: “A full-scale fat-stock marketing board covering all fatstock and with full trade powers, including the right to sell fatstock on a dead weight and quality basis and the right to sell live animals if and when desirable, should be established and ready to operate when control ceases, though some of the powers might be temporarily withheld in the initial stages.

“The fatstock marketing board, if and when set up, should cover cattle and sheep as well as pigs, and should control and market on a dead weight and grade basis all pigs intended for slaughter.”

The council felt that the board should be established forthwith.

The NFU council also gave final approval to plans for the future of agricultural co-operation.

Meanwhile, Mr Humphrey Jamison, secretary of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, had said that the proposed fatstock marketing board had the backing of the three farmers’ unions in the United Kingdom. He remarked: “They have been working on it for a considerable time and the scheme had already been approved by the Ulster union.”