Minster for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has ruled out adding more farm organisations to the board of Bord Bia.

The board of Bord Bia has 14 members, two of whom must be representatives of farmers, according to legislation.

Currently, those two farm organisation positions are occupied by the incumbent presidents of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA).

Other farm organisations have in the past called for more farmer representation on the board.

Those calls got considerably louder over the last two months due to a dispute involving Bord Bia and predominantly the IFA, but all farm organisations were critical of Bord Bia throughout that dispute, which was centred around its chairperson Larry Murrin.

Although a tentative agreement is now in place to resolve that dispute, the demand for more farmer say in how Bord Bia is governed remains.

The issue came up at the AGM of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association (ICSA), which took place today (Tuesday, March 10) in Portlaoise.

The ICSA is one of the farm organisations that have called for expansion of farmers representation on the Bord Bia board, and those calls were repeated at the AGM.

However, Minister Heydon told the assembled ICSA members that, while farmers will have more input into Bord Bia's governance through a new 'Farmers' Forum' that was part of the agreement to end the dispute, he had no intention of changing legislation to allow more than two farmer representatives on the Bord Bia board.

The minister outlined his views on the matter to Agriland, as well as addressing the impact of the conflict in the Middle East, and the timeline of when farmers can expect to know more about the new TB action plan:

The minister's move to rule out a change to the Bord Bia board composition was met with criticism from a number of ICSA members at the AGM.

Minister Heydon also told the meeting that he had been concerned during the dispute that, if it had continued, it may have resulted in lower beef prices, due to customers of Irish food in export markets buying less product in light of the controversy.

The minister also spoke about his concerns over how the conflict in the Middle East could impact input costs for Irish farmers.

He told Agriland: "Obviously anything that impacts on the price of energy is going to impact on every facet of society.

"We know the role that energy costs play in fertiliser production and fertiliser is key to all the food and drink produce that our farmers produce," he added.

"On a broader level across government...we're keeping a very close eye on the impact on energy costs here as well, and I'm acutely aware of how that impacts our farmers in terms of the impact on green diesel and beyond," the minister said.

"There is still a lot of uncertainty and nobody can predict when this conflict will end," the minister warned.

Minister Heydon also said it is "far too early" for interventions to support the agri sector to be brought in at this time, when "there is so much unknown around this conflict and what impacts it will have".