IFA Rural Development Chair John Curran has called on the Department of Agriculture to review again their revamped AgFood Portal as challenges mount.
“We are getting calls from farmers the length and breadth of the country that are having issues getting into AgFood, particularly those in poor coverage areas who can’t get their access tokens on time, or its sent to their son/daughter who signed in before them. The old log-on system was a bit cumbersome, but it was working, so changing it has to be questioned,” he said.
“There are some positive aspects to the portal in terms of its look and feel that should be acknowledged, but they are no use if you can’t get into the system in the first place. In simple terms, farmers can’t be locked out of the system.”
John Curran said AgFood is becoming more and more important to the running of the farm, both from a compliance and DAFM communication perspective. The whole log-in component needs to be looked at again, and a resolution found quickly.
“IFA has raised this in the DAFM working group and we pointed out on more than one occasion that these changes would make AgFood inaccessible for a large number of farmers. We have provided alternative solutions which we will be putting forward again at upcoming working group meetings,” John Curran said.
