Offaly farmer urges local support

Offaly farmer Ronan Feighery has joined a nationwide Macra na Feirme effort asking consumers to make community focused purchases and support local farmers. Ronan features on an online video, available to view at www.macra.ie/supporting-local-producers, explaining why local support is important. He follows Bryan Daniels from Kilkenny as part of a monthly video appeal. Macra are working on their latest campaign with the National Dairy Council (NDC). Macra president Alan Jagoe said he's urging people to buy food and dairy products with the NDC Irish guarantee. "As these young farmers will tell you, this simple action supports thousands of jobs and keeps money in your community," he said. Just last December Macra carried out an online survey of consumer attitudes to the NDC guarantees and the impact it has on dairy farmers. An overwhelming 94 per cent of those surveyed said they felt the NDC guarantee was important or very important to them as consumers. The NDC guarantee is reported to support 2,483 direct manufacturing jobs in dairies, which economically supports a further 9,932 jobs.