When I reported progress, I was saying that, as in the marketing of milk products, there was a need for proper research in the use of brand names in relation to our pig meat and bacon and into the certainty of productivity for marketing abroad. Again, as in the case of milk products, the volume in the latter has not been constant. While the quality may have been good, particularly since the institution of the grading system introduced by Deputy Dillon as Minister for Agriculture, at the same time we did not get credit for that quality, credit in the shape of pounds, shillings and pence, because when the trade was built up the fact is we no longer had anything to export.
In the normal cycle, there is, first of all, a great increase in the number of sows with a resultant increase in bonhams and fat pigs. Notwithstanding the grading system introduced, because there were too many pigs, or a larger number of them available, the price dropped. Now that pig cycle seems to have started all over again. The latest figure shows a six per cent decrease in the number of sows. If we cannot remedy the situation we will find ourselves back on the old road and the old road did not get us the highest price or, more important still, the premium. Taking it any way you like, whether as a saving to the Exchequer and the taxpayer, or an increase to the farmer, the price obtainable would indicate that justice demands an increase to the farmer, if you can get it, but you will never get it until there is a standard quality and an improvement in breeding. That could be achieved possibly by the establishment of pig fattening stations from which sows would be issued to the small farmer to do the job the large producer will not undertake.
It is quite obvious, however, that the small producer will no longer be satisfied with a small profit on a small number of fat pigs, and all that we can offer him in present conditions is a small profit. The real answer is in the large number. If we establish pig fattening stations by direct State intervention or ministerial encouragement, as has been suggested, we can provide for the small farmer, who depends for quite a large part of his income on pigs and sows, the certainty of a profit. Some people will disagree with that but the more specialised job is the pig fattening particularly if one intends to work to a certain grade.
Losses on wheat are included in this Supplementary Estimate. The Minister has indicated that not all the losses are included and a further sum will appear in next year's general Estimate. Wheat is a particularly difficult part of our farming economy. Only since 1953 has there been a constant surplus of, or enough, Irish wheat in the grist. In December, 1953, the Fianna Fáil Government produced its departmental paper on the quantity of wheat we could use in our grist. The figure was 300,000 tons. Subsequently it was reduced to 280,000 tons. Now it is 265,000 tons. If the practice is to introduce wheat into the grist at a relatively high price in relation to the industrial wage structure, the reduction in the consumption of flour and home-baked bread, which is a dying art really, is something that reduces the price to the farmer and his opportunities for sale.
The first thing that must be said is that there is grave doubt in many people's minds as to whether or not there has been enough constancy in approach and enough fair play all the time in so far as judgment of quality is concerned. If you look at the percentage included in the grist, which is how the miller must look at the quality, there are strange divergencies from what we might expect. For instance, in 1952-53, at the stage when this continuing surplus had first appeared, we had a bad year and only 38 per cent of the Irish wheat went into grist. The relevance of this is that the more that goes into grist, the less loss there is to the Exchequer. If more had gone in the previous year, less money would require to be voted now.
In 1953-54, the figure was 71 per cent; in 1954-55, 68 per cent. That was one of the worst harvests. In 1955-56, it was 74 per cent. When you come to 1958-59, it is 18 per cent, after the harvest of 1958. Every harvest brings its own difficult problems but it does not appear logical to me that after the rotten harvest of 1954, you could still proceed on a basis of about 70 per cent and avoid loss to the Exchequer and the farmers and that in the year 1958-59, which represented the bad harvest of 1958, you had only 18 per cent. In 1959-60, we had a reduction in the quantity of wheat and an increase in the quantity of barley and we had 58 per cent for grist. In 1960-61, when again we had a bad year, the percentage came down to 33 and then went up to 65.
I do not know what will be the outcome of this year's operations but it appears there is grave doubt in the public mind as to whether the same judgment was accorded the wheat in every year, bearing in mind the different problems of different wheat harvests. That is something the Minister might dwell on when replying, something which might be looked into. I am also convinced that there is an opportunity for saving if our bakers will produce greater variety of bread. In general, but particularly in the country, we do not get the variety of bread to encourage a greater use of it. The more bread we use, the less will be the loss to the Exchequer.
There are three subheads in this Vote and under subhead 4 come ex gratia payments to growers. Here again is the same situation. If more of that wheat had been included in the grist, there would be less need for ex gratia payments. Everybody doubts if sufficient wheat was included in the grist. On 20th March last, I asked the Minister if it was a fact that at the end of the season it was found that the method of testing for maltose in the Central Laboratory, which was set up last year as an intermediary between the millers and the farmers, had a constant error in its results. Because of this, I believe that much wheat was sent out as unmillable which, if the result had been correct, would have been accepted as millable.
With laboratory tests of lots, you are not in a position to produce an absolutely certain result in respect of any one lot. I believe that laboratory testing by the maltose method, the method specified as the deciding factor in one part of the wheat quality problem, is something that depends very largely on the taking of samples. I think the ready-made Hagberg test, which was a quick test of maltose content, was similarly subject to the taking of samples and that you could take two samples from the same lot of wheat and very often get different results. It is possible for the miller who wants to buy in one parcel to be right four times out of five and that is sufficient for his purpose in getting his parcel together, but it is rather hard luck on the fifth farmer whose test proves wrong.
Even with careful taking of samples and the utmost care in laboratory tests, I think that situation can arise and therefore, while this arrangement was made between the NFA on behalf of the farmers and the millers, it might be better next year to cut out laboratory tests completely and use them only for the information of those who had to put together the wheat and get maltose content for the purpose of making successful bread. That is my honest opinion. It may find favour and it may not but I give it because I believe it is true and not in any spirit of criticism of the Minister.
The recoupment in respect of the export of wheat is something that must be looked at also, because, while I agree with the Minister who indicated in his speech that you cannot feed 100 per cent wheat to animals, that you must produce a rational balance, that it is too strong and must be thinned down by the addition of other cereals such as barley and oats, at the same time, I question that on the figures he supplies it is necessary to export wheat this year at all. Losses on export are very considerable and the arrangement at present operating is already subject to grave doubt. While the responsibility is the Minister's and when you make arrangements with different bodies, I agree it is not possible to make speeches about them here afterwards giving every detail just as it happens. Parliament is a place where there is a searching Opposition, which is as it should be, but there is grave public unrest about the arrangement whereby the Federation of Irish Feedingstuff Manufacturers gave up their right to import to importers, distributors who were then granted the right to import all coarse grains in return for which they were prepared to take up the barley crop at a given price and market it within the country or export it, if there was a surplus.
This criticism has been mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition, inasmuch as nobody knows what are the prices of the offals coming in but on barley, there is a loss and that loss must be made good through the profit on imports. An operation such as that must not only be just but it must be seen to be just. I am a member, or at least my firm is a member, of one of these groups. I imply no dishonesty or anything like that, but it is necessary that justice should also be seen to be done. I also question whether or not it is necessary for such a concession to be given to a particular group within the country just, shall we say, to provide the money to take up the barley at harvest time. The provision of money for such an operation in a basic industry is not of such great difficulty. I am not suggesting that an agency such as An Bord Gráin might be a better thing but it is something that could be investigated. I feel that the misgivings which a lot of people have are justified inasmuch as people are entitled to know whether or not they are getting the best bargain that can be got for them. That is not a vicious criticism of the Minister or of anybody else but it is a fair appraisal of the situation.
I regret that the Minister adverted in what I would describe as a rather derogatory fashion to the efforts of certain farmers' organisations to get some increase in remuneration for their members. The whole basis of forward movement is agreement, and cordial agreement, between the Minister and the farming bodies. The Minister in his circulated speech referred to various pronouncements made recently by some people who claimed to speak for the farming community. I take it that these were pronouncements made by the ICMSA and the National Farmers' Association. The Minister is quite unwise to treat them in that fashion. Whether the Minister likes it or whether I like it, they are the people who speak for the creamery farmers. There is no other group which speaks for them with the strength and representation of those two groups and there is no vying for power between each group in this particular representation. It is something they are both doing in their own way for their own members, just as perhaps a claim for increased wages might be made in some industry by the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union working together for their members in the same concern. That is the context. There is no reason why there should not be two such organisations with their members to support and particular duties to do.
The Minister also produced a lot of statistics. He said that the increase in the yield per cow was from 370 gallons in 1953 to 460 gallons this year. I accept his figures as the figures he got from his Department or from the various Government sources, but if the starting off point was 370 gallons it is a pretty poor show that the figure now is only 460 gallons. When he says that the return per cow was £41 in 1962, the last year for which he had figures, and was £32 in 1953, he is talking about gross income. Whenever one looks at a balance sheet the gross income and profit figure is a very nice academic one but it is not worth a hat of crabs until you get the net income. Incidentally, the Minister claims this as a result of Government policy. I would not claim it and our Government were in power for a period during that time. I would say it was as a result of the activities of the farmers' organisations, the greater education and interest in the land which they generated. They provided better housing, feeding and breeding and as a result got this increase. But I would not claim it and neither should the Minister.
Against the increase to £41 per cow, you have to put all the increased costs since 1953. Remember that between 1953 and 1963 agricultural prices were exactly the same. The agricultural price index, taking the base year 1953 at 100, varied in the last year from 96, 97 to 100.6 and I think at one stage it went over 101 so that as far as a practical appraisal of the situation is concerned the farmers in general get the same price as in 1953 with far greater costs. The Minister's statement of an increase to £41 is on the basis of that, that they must pare from that £9 per cow for greater costs. I do not know what the Minister finds but I find that my production costs for milk are up by 30 to 40 per cent during that period. Perhaps I am lucky to be in the Dublin milk sales district where there are more stringent regulations as to the production of milk. That all costs money but by and large we are a bit better off than creamery farmers at the moment despite the extra regulations and we are entitled to be. At the same time, my costs are up by 30 to 40 per cent and if the Minister works it out and pursues his statistics to their logical conclusion, then, instead of having an increase in net income, he will have a considerable decrease.
The Minister in his speech then proceeded to the question of supports which the farmer received. He talked about the relief of rates on agricultural land. There was, last year, a relief of rates to the extent of some £2½ million. Sometimes when I meet members of the Fianna Fáil Party, we talk about these things and recently a couple of them admitted that they felt that the Fianna Fáil Party got bad value out of this operation because it was mainly the larger farmers who got this increase. That is a political statement. I do not know whether it is right or wrong, but anyone who is a member of a local authority and has been through the rates operation this year, as I have been on two local authorities, is quite satisfied that, when the eventual figures are compiled for the whole country, it will be found that almost all the increase in grants last year on the rates for agricultural land will have been swallowed up in an increased poundage rate.
That, perhaps, is something which is proceeding but you must remember that the farmers did not go out to march in every town in Ireland until they were practically at the end of their tether. They did not just go out because there was 1/- or 2/- on the rates one year. They went out because there was a continual increase on agricultural land and they could not bear it any longer. They got some relief, but in the following year, according to the figures we have available so far, this was to be wiped out by an increase in the poundage rate. It is all right to say that the farmer does not pay income tax, but he is, on the other hand, the only person who is paying a rate or levy on his stock-in-trade as well as paying rates on his farm buildings, his farmhouse, on his green fields, on his cornfields, on his entire holding.
So that particular argument of the Minister is exploded. The Land Project is down but I should like to deal with that later when we get to the question of savings in this Vote. Talking about agricultural research, the Minister probably included Marshall Aid money. I do not say he did but perhaps he did. At page 6, the Minister mentions the income per farm family member. Again, he is talking about gross income. Take four family members: father, mother, son and daughter, on a typical farm. As well as the gross income we must also take the costs before you get down to the £1 the daughter has to spend on clothes, the £1 the son has as pocket money or the money the father and mother have to run the home, and to make subtractions from the Minister's figures.
I do not think he has proved at all that there is an increase in the real remuneration of the farming community, their sons and daughters, since 1953. When you take the question of costs as against increases in gross incomes, even accepting the Minister's figures, you must also take the increase in the cost of living and the decrease in the value of the £. You must grant that the value of the £ is now only 10/11 as compared with 1945. Does not that again explode the Minister's statement that the farmers are better off? The Minister was wrong and unwise in producing that theory. I do not think he will succeed in convincing them in the country that they are better off, because they know they are worse off. Any improvement in production is a result of their own efforts and of encouragements given by all Governments, including the Minister's. There are savings which have decreased the amount of the Supplementary Estimate and the first one mentioned is the saving under E3, on page 202 of the Book of Estimates, which deals with the improvement in poultry and egg production.
