asked the Minister for Agriculture if he is aware that there are indications that the number of pigs in Éire at the 1st of December last available for killing and curing shows a reduction of 40 per cent. compared with the average of the last few years, and whether he will indicate what steps, if any, he proposes to take to counter this alarming position.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Pig Production.
The number of pigs purchased for curing in bacon factories in this country during the two weeks immediately prior to 1st December last and the two following weeks was 79,780, which, compared with the average of the numbers so purchased in the corresponding four weeks of 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936, represented a reduction of 9.3 per cent. and not 40 per cent. as mentioned in the question. The total number of pigs bought for curing in the factories during the 52 weeks ended 1st instant was 1,038,262, this being an increase of 3.9 per cent. as compared with the average of the total annual purchases in the four preceding years, namely, 999,047. I have no information which would lead me to anticipate that there is any danger that the number of pigs which will be available in future will not be reasonably sufficient for the requirements of our bacon factories.
Is the Minister aware that his own figures disclose a state of affairs where there were 10,000 sows less on the 1st June last than there were 12 months before, and that that 10,000 is in addition to about 5,000 sows less in the previous 12 months?
Those are the figures for what were actually taken in by the factories.
But I want to know about the indications for the future. I do not want to know anything about what has happened in the last 12 months. My question deals with indications for the future, and those indications point to the reduction I have mentioned.
I have been doing my best to advise farmers to keep more pigs, and if I got some co-operation from the Deputies opposite we might make some headway.
Did you not run a campaign—you and the Irish Independent—to prevent the farmers from producing pigs?
Would not the most effective way to ensure an increase in the pig population of this country be to make arrangements to ensure that the production of pigs is profitable?
It is profitable.
Would it not be more effective to make the curers pay a reasonable price for pigs; to make the curers content themselves with a reasonable profit, and to make the maize meal available to the producer at a reasonable price?
That type of speech is just what is killing pig production in this country.