Large Farms, Local Politics, and the International Arena: The Irish Tax Dispute of 1979

Abstract

Irish farmers have traditionally supported the two major political parties in part in order to influence governments who made national farm policy. Ireland's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 shifted the locus of agricultural policy-making to the continent and changed the ability of Irish politicians to control the provision of goods and services to their constituents. The "large farmers" of County Meath were quick to see that their economic livelihoods demanded a redefinition of their political roles. The national tax dispute of 1979 established a pattern in Irish politics in which Irish commercial fanners have eschewed many of their former political roles and have joined ranks within the increasingly powerful national farmers' organization, the Irish Farmers' Association, in order to affect national and international agricultural and tax policy decisions. This Irish case is an example of an international phenomenon, namely, the erosion of the material bases of a decreasing population of family farmers and their strategies to influence policy determination by governments which had once accorded farmers more favored statuses.