When I moved that progress be reported last week on this Estimate I produced irrefutable evidence of the potentialities of the Friesian breed as a producer of a good steer. A number of Deputies in the House have since dubbed me as the sworn and avowed advocate of the Friesian. That is not so. I merely produced data, facts and figures, to explode once and for all the hoary theory that the dual purpose Shorthorn was the best cow in the world. I had explained earlier on that I was not unmindful of the capabilities and I shall now try to tell the House something of the potentialities of the Jersey cow.
I think the Jersey has a very important part to play in our dairying economy. I come from a dairying county in which there are many small dairy farms; I have often pondered on this particular aspect of our farming economy, and I have come to the conclusion that, while the larger dairy farms may be quite suitable for the larger breeds, such as the dairy Shorthorn and the Dutch Friesian, such large breeds have no place whatever on the small dairy farm.
The Dutch Friesian has an easy average 1,000 gallons milk potential; and from the data available it would be easier for us to get that 1,000 gallons from the Dutch Friesian than it would be from the Irish dairy Shorthorn. Now, on the larger dairy farms I believe the steer should be kept at least to the age of one and a half to two years. These farms are large enough to finish these beasts.
The only really satisfactory dairy breed for the small dairy man is the Jersey. A peculiar pattern presents itself on the small dairy farm. Any Deputy who is conversant with that pattern is aware that the calves are sold within a week after birth; if they are not sold then, they are ferried out when they are six to nine months old. This practice has been described as the Trojan odyssey of the Irish calf. Indeed the peregrinations of the unfortunate Irish calf put the exploits of Ulysses in the shade; it is moved from farm to farm and passed through a chain of blockers, wringers and all kinds of spivs before it ultimately reaches the big farm.
Another reason why the Jersey should have a place on the small dairy farm is because the relative economy of the 600-gallon Jersey is equal to the 1,000-gallon Shorthorn or Friesian. Deputies are aware, of course, of the very high butter fat content of the Jersey cow. Another factor in arguing the relative merits of the different breeds is the food units consumed and the relative production in return therefor. The smallholder can carry more Jersey cows than he can of the larger breeds because the Jersey, being on the average about 7 cwt. and the Friesian or Shorthorn being in the region of 11 to 12 cwt., the consumption rate of food in the case of the smaller animal is very much less.
Deputies are aware that there is a certain snobbery in Irish dairy farming. In my constituency, the farmer is not assessed by the number of acres he has; he is assessed by the grass of so many cows. That is the phrase that is used to describe the size of his farm. That being so, an increased number of cows might inflate his position socially.
We have never had in this country a small-farm economy. That is one of the reasons why we hear so much about the distress suffered by the small dairy farmer. The small dairy farm has been used for the past 50 years as a kind of satellite subsidiary to the larger beef farms. The calf produced on the small farm is moved out at an early age. So many people are involved in this movement that the small farmer in the last analysis receives a very small proportion of the profit from the birth of the calf to the time when it reaches six or nine months. The general practice on a small farm is to move the calf some time between September and December.
The small farmer must be made to realise that he can only survive as a specialist. He can only become a specialist if he is provided with the high-powered conversion units which will give him an adequate return for his labour. There must be concentration. A 50-acre farm down in Cork bears no relationship to a 20-acre farm within seven miles of Dublin. Living close to the built-up areas, a farmer can specialise and thereby get a higher return per acre from his 20-acre farm than can a man with six times that amount of land 100 miles away from Dublin.
If the small farmer is to survive he must be given an independent economy of his own. He must cease to be connected to this inept and improvident beef industry of the flat lands and the Midlands. He must not be tied to the rancher and the beef farmer. He must be given an independent economy. But for 50 years the policy of the Department of Agriculture has, in the main, been to use the small farmer as the satellite subsidiary of this inept and improvident beef industry. That is why there is this tendency for the small man to disappear. He will survive only if he is given the essential specialist conversion units—a better cow, a better pig, better grass yields and higher crop yields. That is the only way in which we can ensure the survival of the smallholder.
The small dairyman as a calf rearer —say even to the nine months stage— has taken all the risks associated with calf rearing in that nine months. Remember that all the calf graves lie by the fences of the small dairyman. When the animal has reached nine or ten months the risk, at least to a very great extent, has passed. We know from Professor Murphy's survey of the Milford area of the enormous casualties suffered by those farmers in the dairying areas who attempted to carry the calves over that risk-laden period —I think it was something in the region of 20 per cent. Now, with improved vaccines and improved drugs— we have aurofac and sulphamethazine and other drugs which are of considerable use. We have the sulpha and hexachlorathaine to get rid of the parasitic diseases of calves but there is no drug which will rid the calves of the external parasites that have attached themselves to the hides of the calves, the wretched people, the parasites of middle-men who are living off the hides and skeletons of the unfortunate calves.
That is why I advocate the Jersey cow for the small man. Let him forget altogether about rearing calves. Remember New Zealand is one of the most highly competitive countries in the world so far as the output of dairy products is concerned, per cow and per acre. They started on Shorthorns. The original cow population of New Zealand was entirely Shorthorn and they crossed, not by importing Jersey cows but by importing Jersey bulls. They crossed their whole cow population into Jerseys and it places them to-day in one of the soundest and one of the most unassailable positions in the world as far as the export of dairy produce to a competitive market is concerned.
When I come in here people say I am a crank. Well, at least I have the advantage that I bring a fresh mind to this House and a new approach. I have the privilege of being able to disagree with people on my own side of the House as well as with the Minister for Agriculture himself. He may hold a view, but I have maintained and I stated here when speaking on his Estimate last year that there is a permanent record in the Irish Department of Agriculture and every now and then the Minister is given by the permanent staff the menial job of putting on the disc and doing what the Americans call disc-jockey. On one side it plays: "The dual purpose cow is the best in the world". Turn up the other side and what do we hear?—"We can never again compete as exporters of dairy produce in the competitive markets of the world". That has been the position; that is the contradiction on either side of that record.
Take the pattern which evolved after the war. We went into a sellers' market. We were selling our dairy produce in a market where dairy produce was scarce. We found ourselves in the peculiar position of importing into this country butter from New Zealand, 14,000 miles away, produced cheaper and landed here cheaper than we could produce it in Ireland. Then we went into the sellers' market and exported processed cheese to the English market. What happened? The very minute the Canadians and other exporters of cheese were in a position to come into the British market, the very minute competition returned, we were forced into the position of gathering up our impediments and clearing out. We are out now for cheese and butter and there is a challenge where chocolate crumb is concerned. Remember that if you cannot compete in one dairy produce product you cannot compete in any.
We have to face the position that with the improvement in our grass— the Minister talks about sending experts to advise farmers to various areas in the country and one of the primary jobs of those particular individuals will be to show the farmers how to treat grass as a crop and not as a gift of God or an accident of nature — once we increase our grass production and once we teach our farmers a modern grass technique one of the things we can be assured of is that we are bound to have as a permanent feature of our economy a certain exportable surplus of dairy produce. Are we to be placed in the position of permanently selling at a loss subsidised Irish dairy produce in the English market? No matter how long that record is played, no matter how often the thing is repeated, we must provide an economic conversion unit in the competitive cow. We must give our farmers the same tools to compete with as their competitors have in the British market. There is no use in our howling about things, our farmers will have to be put in the position of being given instruments that are as competitive as their opposite numbers elsewhere have. We live in a world where there is no respect for anything small. It has been the pattern of this century that anything small is crushed out and trampled on. We are supplied here with statistical abstracts. Study the figures and what do they reveal? We have the Land Commission creating something like 1,200 new holdings a year, and, I say, in the main on the present basis of our agricultural economy holdings which will make a demand for further increased social services. What is happening at the other end? You have consolidation of small holdings, elimination and liquita dation of exactly twice that figure, so that on that basis the small man is being continually and relentlessly crushed out. That is the pattern which evolves to us to-day for anybody who wants to go to the trouble of studying the figures.
Recently I had a rather peculiar experience. It was in connection with a man who had spent almost 50 years in America. When he came back he tried to trace his relations and his home and all that was left was the ruin of the old house he was born in. A new generation had come since he had left; the old people were dead, and the family had disappeared; all that was left was the ruin of the old home. The lands, in the meantime, had been absorbed by a big landowner close by.
I do not want to be sentimental on this Estimate but one of the things he did was to go to the owner and seek permission to examine the ruins. The only thing he could recover from the ruins to take with him was the hearthstone of the old house. He had the hearthstone of the old house dug up and transported to America to be incorporated in the home of his family in exile in the United States. That is the pattern of Irish agriculture. That is the tragedy. The small man is being continually squeezed out and he is being squeezed out mainly by the bad economic pattern to which he has and is subjected. The small man must be treated in a different way as, otherwise, this consolidation will increase in momentum and no matter what the Land Commission may do they will not be able to replace by division the number of holdings that will be consolidated and absorbed in any given year.
I do not come to talk in this House without having some idea of the solution. I have just a few pointers in the direction of a solution. I say, first of all, teach our small dairyman the value of scientific grass and crop production. Secondly, give him a Jersey herd and a better pig. Then, straightway, you have given him a new outlook, a new hope and the title deeds to survival. That is my belief as far as the small man is concerned. Remember that 60 per cent. of the farms of Ireland slide down the scale from 50 statute acres and bear in mind, at the same time, that in some of the most progressive countries in the world the average farm is no more than 25 acres. That is the position in some of the Scandinavian countries. Yet, because they have adopted a scientific and high-geared production system, they make a first-class living on those farms.
Not so long ago I was speaking to what would be the equivalent here of a professor of agricultural economics. This man from Copenhagen University was studying here the pattern of Irish agriculture. In the course of conversation with him I mischievously asked him: "What is your ambition?" I was thunderstruck by his reply—his ambition was to own ten hectares of land. One of the things I say is that, despite the fact that our fight for freedom was synonymous with our fight for the control of the soil of Ireland, there is evidence that, as a race, we have lost our love for the land. Our educational system lays no emphasis on love for the land.
If we study the curricula of our educational system we will see that, in the main, it is geared to supply material for the Civil Service, the seminary, the teaching and other professions. The whole educational system is geared to cater either for the university or for the Civil Service. The majority of our rural population will not go beyond the national school. There is no word about love for the land nor is anything taught in the national schools that will create an interest in the youthful and impressionable mind as far as the botanical and physical structure of the land is concerned. The very opposite is the case in Denmark. The Danes have their folk schools and practically 80 per cent. of their population pass through those folk-schools. The preface to the meeting of any Danish society or organisation is the singing of a Danish folksong. Here, that is completely absent.
We have a peculiar snobbery in our rural set-up. The very minute people on the land accumulate money they do not think in terms of trying to place their second son on another farm. They think in terms of apprenticing him to the law or of making him a doctor. In their view, he must be a professional man. Obviously their attitude is that the yardstick by which you can measure social progress and upliftment is to have the next generation members of the various professions. In my view this bias and this prejudice must be attacked also. We all admit that, on those small farms, limitations set by size can be offset by intensity of production. That is what has made those small Scandinavian countries what they are.
If you want to make sure or to guarantee the survival of our small farms, you will have to give them food conversion units that will give the maximum return for the minimum intake. In other words, you will have to give them a cow that, with the minimum amount of food, will give the maximum return and profit and similarly a pig that will do likewise. If you could give them a better cow and a better pig and teach them a better grass and a better animal husbandry you would put them some way on the road to finding a solution of their problem. However, if one Minister for Agriculture after another keeps hollering across the House that we have the best Department of Agriculture in the world, that our system, our cows, our dual purpose Shorthorns and our large Yorks are the best in the world then we know it is only a matter of time until we shall have effected the absolute disappearance of the smallholder.
One of the evils which have beset this country is continuing emigration. Somebody once said that the lifeblood of a nation is its young men and young women. On that basis, this country has for years had a severed artery through which we have been slowly bleeding to death. We now know we have reached the stage when we have a disproportionate amount of old people. Emigration has been our greatest catastrophe. Remember every able-bodied man and woman leaving the shores of Ireland represents an enormous capital loss.
I wish somebody who is a better mathematician and a better statistician than I am would try to assess the capital loss involved to the State by the emigration of an able-bodied man or woman. Fifty years ago the expenditure by the State on the individual was at a minimum. To-day, with increased social services, with the State coming so much to the aid of the individual from childhood to manhood, the figure must be enormous. You can multiply the capital loss represented by the net emigration of able-bodied men and women and thereby assess the recurring capital loss to the State in sterling. Emigration is the severed artery by which we are slowly but surely bleeding to death.
There is another aspect of the matter. There is the consequential loss. By the time a boy or girl reaches 18 years of age the State has expended to the maximum, and in the normal course of events should expect, at that age, some return for that expenditure. The position is that, at the time when that particular individual is at the stage when his or her brain, brawn or muscle should help in building up our economy and should give something in return to the State which has so generously helped in his or her upbringing, he or she crosses the gangway of the emigrant ship and the return which should be ours goes to the building of the country to which he or she emigrates. That is the pattern here.
You can start as many industries as you want but the picture here has been, not so much the absorption of our surplus population as the urbanisation of our rural population. We have one of the lowest rural densities of population in Europe. If we had increased agriculture, if we had some sane and sensible agricultural policy, there is every hope that we could considerably increase the density of our rural population.
These are the factors which have to be considered. I would not like to be the Minister who would sit over there and say: "We have plus this on exports and plus that on exports." The whole thing is all cod. There is a problem to be solved. We have not got at the root of the problem and these small increases will fluctuate according as the demand for the market across the Channel operates one way or the other. That has been very much the pattern of Irish agriculture. When there were pluses it was when the demand existed on the other side. When there were minuses it was when the demand declined. At this particular period and for the last ten or 12 years Britain has been going through an industrial boom. Suppose, in a settled or stabilised world, we had a recession in purchasing power in Great Britain, what then would the position be? Would not the pluses be very soon replaced by minuses? The unfortunate part of our set-up here is that we started 50 years ago with a Commonwealth economy and we cannot get away from it even now.
Something has been done in land reclamation and all the reclamation has been in the bogs. We have been perpetually in the bog. Travel through the country anywhere you want to and you will see marginal land on the foothills that was once comparatively fertile land, land which maintained that population which has disappeared into the mist of emigration within the past 100 years. I believe that the potential there is as great as, and possibly many times greater than, the potential of bog reclamation. We have done nothing whatever to reclaim the marginal lands.
Speaking in this debate last week I pointed out the huge market that exists for the New Zealanders in England for mutton carcases. Is there not something to be examined here? Our season is the opposite to the New Zealander's season. He comes in with peak production in the opposite season to us. Surely we could come in when he seasonally disappears and try to increase production on our marginal lands and on our foothills. The examination of increased production of mutton and wool requires the immediate attention of our Department of Agriculture.
I want to say something else in connection with the utilisation of the foothills and the marginal lands. There is nothing more utterly ridiculous than to see a man 2,000 feet up trying to keep the same cow as we could have, say, in the Golden Vale. If we were people capable of making a survey of the position, would it not occur to us that the sensible thing would be to put in there an animal whose genetical and environmental background puts that animal in the position that it is a known hill forager and a good survivor in the hill country? We have here the Kerry breed. Nothing has been done about it. There is a Kerry Society even in England. I doubt if there is one in this country. The breed is being preserved for us at the other side. Then there is the Ayrshire.
I could produce facts and figures but I do not want to confuse the House by giving too much data in regard to breeds. The hardy hill breeds should have some consideration in our economy.
The Minister and the whole Department of Agriculture is a huge propaganda machine, all the time geared at high power trying to assert that the dual purpose Shorthorn is the open sesame to every problem facing Irish agriculture. The relative facts and figures should be placed without bias before the people. That high propaganda machine should be reversed and put to its normal function which should be to analyse the facts and figures and make them available to the farmers so as to educate them and to help them.
I am a lone voice in this House. Look round you here. You know what my value as a propagandist in this House is, with eight or ten people listening. You know that on any other Estimate there is a queue of Deputies waiting to speak in the House. When it comes to the Estimate for Agriculture, the basic industry in this country, the arch on which our whole economic structure rests, you have a few old "Droighnains" like myself and nobody else.
