International Year of the Woman Farmer: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20 ============================================================ Tom Clonan (IND), University of Dublin I am proud to co-sponsor Senator Boyhan's motion. You might ask what a fellow from Finglas would know about farming. On my dad's side, they had a farm in County Meath near Killyon, Hill of Down, so I have been around cattle in the 1970s. I got sunburned on the bog in 1976, so I have some inkling. I wanted to talk about the great time of geopolitical turbulence in the 20th century, a time of dictators and unbridled aggression, something that we are sadly becoming familiar with today. In Operation Barbarossa, the Russians had everything destroyed, including Ukrainians. The Soviet Union was decimated in this scorched-earth policy. Two German divisions went to Minsk and Smolensk and predated the land and killed everything - all the cattle, all the fowl - and destroyed all of the land. Those two divisions had been earmarked to invade Ireland under the German plan, Unternehmen Grün , Operation Green, which was supposed to happen in parallel with Operation Sea Lion and the Battle of Britain. In that time of absolute devastation, conflict and crisis, the Soviets had to move all of their heavy oil, coal and steel industries east of the Urals and start them from scratch. They also had to do the same with agriculture. Some 99% of the labour in the oil, steel and coal plants and 99% of the labour in their farms were women. During that period from 1943 to 1945, all of the production records of the Soviet Union were broken and were never reached again, even in the sixties, seventies and eighties, notwithstanding the mechanisation and improvements in technology and so on. I would not underestimate the power and the potential of women because that was a female phenomenon. I understand that Ireland could in theory feed 60 million people. I agree with Senator Clifford-Lee that there is a major concern around food security. We are a bit obsessed at the moment about drones and AI and so on, but if you ain't got food, you ain't got nothing. I am shocked to hear that we have gone from 600 to just 60 vegetable producers in Ireland. We only have 300 potato producers. We really need to support farmers because it is essential for food security and our national future. With the changes in climate, Europe is the continent that is warming at the fastest rate throughout the world. Ireland will play a vital role in food security but we cannot afford to lose the skill sets. I echo what Senator Cosgrove said, that every child in Ireland should be taught in primary school how to grow something, whether it is in a window box in an apartment or in a back garden or allotment. We have to reinvigorate those skills. I thank Senator Boyhan for this motion and encourage the participation of women in farming. They are 51% of the population and women and girls are key to the future of this Republic and to us even as a species. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-20