As I pointed out yesterday, we are not taking full advantage of the very valuable assets we have. If we acted in the right way it would add considerably to our income by way of hard currency. Too much of our agricultural produce is going to Britain and after feeding the animals the British purchase from us they earn the hard currency we should be earning.
If we organised the raw materials available to us to sell to the best advantage, and if we produced the maximum amount of cereals that would feed us, it would be possible to have a further 20,000 jobs available. As I stated yesterday, we are selling meat everywhere for the prices that are going but we are not building up a market that we could hold in difficult times. We have the kind of meat that is more acceptable than that from South America, New Zealand or Australia and we should develop that part of the industry as we do with our salmon and fishing industry. We should have processing plants that would ensure our products go directly to the shops, rather than shipping the half sides of beef as we do at the moment, thus allowing other countries to earn additional money by carrying out processing work.
What we are doing at the moment is not the best policy for the future and a setback is bound to come. History has proved that the cattle trade does not keep going steadily. When it suits the Common Market countries, particularly the heavily industrialised nations, they will turn to the cheapest markets or not use any meat at all. We should be building for the day when we can consume our own agricultural products. Our population is steadily increasing and the time will come when we will not be so worried about selling to other countries. All our natural resources should be designed to give the maximum employment here and, while it might suit some people to sell for the quick £, our aim should be to produce the maximum number of jobs and to get the most advantageous prices, particularly in hard currency.
There has been a large reduction in our cattle population and there must be plenty of scope for the growing of more cereals, particularly barley. If we can prepare in a way that is acceptable to other countries we will be able to provide more jobs here. From a study of the subject, I am convinced that at least 20,000 jobs could be found in the area of meat processing, milling and the growing of more crops. In addition, more fertilisers will be used and this will also help the employment situation. With the land we have available we should not have to import raw materials for feeding stuffs.
There is a certain retrenchment in some of the products we produced in the past. For instance, the production of chocolate crumb is down and this would not have happened if we followed up on the markets that are still available for this product. There is one European firm—one I hope will locate in my county—that is interested in the production of chocolate crumb and the finished product for the European and the United States markets. The undertaking concerned is an Italian-German company.
More funds from Europe should be invested in this type of production. It is amazing that our organisations which are trying to attract and build up industry do not go after this type of industrialist. We appreciate the funds we get for the heavy industries which must import heavy steel and so on but we should be making maximum use of the raw materials we have such as milk and its by-products. There seems to be a lack of push in this direction and the Minister should have it explored.
I often wondered whether the IDA have personnel who are closely related to farming because such personnel would be able to see the advantages of this type of business. This type of induction is necessary within that organisation. The same applies with regard to fishing. Personnel interested in fishing should be involved in that organisation so as to push that industrial arm to the maximum. Time is running out and this industry will not be very attractive in the future unless something is done.
Our sheep numbers are falling rapidly and are dangerously low. In my area young people are not prepared to carry on the job their fathers did in looking after sheep. They are not prepared to climb around the mountains looking for sheep and with the low returns from sheep rearing they are more attracted to the more lucrative jobs. This is serious for the development of the Scotch breed. In the past we have been engaged in crossing the Scotch ewe with the Border Leicester and eventually getting the Suffolk breed from that type of cross-strain but if we lose our mountain sheep we will be in a serious situation. The recent directive by the Department changing the dipping position to one dip per year has not helped this situation. I approached the Minister in relation to this and he graciously agreed that dipping certificates would not be required this year but some thought must be given to the future.
The Department must bear in mind that mountain sheep farmers must sell their lambs in August or September but if this dipping certificate is necessary before that they cannot sell their lambs because dipping will only commence in October and continue up to February. Those farmers will be deprived of the subsidy which was intended to keep them in sheep breeding on mountain holdings. The Minister should design the lamb subsidy schemes so as to cater for those farmers. In my view the scheme which makes it obligatory on sheep farmers to have a dipping certificate cannot work. I can recall what happened some years ago when we had a heavy fall of snow in the mountain areas of my constituency. The snow lasted for a couple of months and in Kerry a lot of the sheep were lost. Sheep farmers were not able to follow their sheep. The sheep were snowed-in in gullies and cliffs. I followed a rescue party and discovered that the only way they could trace the sheep was by looking for a hole in the snow on the cliffs created by the breathing of the sheep. On that occasion of the 20 or 30 sheep lost only eight survived and they had the wool eaten off each other. This is the type of hardship sheep farmers must face. They make every effort to save their flocks and any scheme to help them must be tied in with the conditions under which they farm. If the Department hold that the dipping scheme must apply to them it can only result in more sheep farmers going out of this business. With our sheep numbers steadily falling that would be a catastrophe.
I hope the Minister will help the sheep farmers and not restrict their actions. The disadvantaged areas scheme has been of tremendous help to mountain farmers in my area but some anomalies exist. A big number of sheep farmers live in the electoral division of Kiltallagh, near Castlemaine. They farm very small holdings but have been excluded from this scheme. The electoral divisions of Kiltallagh, Kilnanare, Milltown and Droma should be brought into this scheme. On the other side of the valley in the Buffer district, there is exceptionally good farming land and that area is included but for some unknown reason the electoral divisions I have mentioned, particularly the Milltown district, are excluded. That scheme would be of great help to those farmers. Two of those electoral divisions are very mountainous and the others, by virtue of the type of land and the number of small holdings, are equally disadvantaged. The Minister should endeavour to have them included in the scheme.
Pig production is developing, something that pleases me. I have always been associated with pig production and I contend that a scheme should be devised to help individual farmers produce more pigs. I know substantial grants exist at present. A farmer who can produce 200 to 300 pigs annually can make a reasonable amount of money but there should be a stabilised price for feeding stuffs. The heavy costs of feeding stuffs is one of the big drawbacks in pig production. The price of feeding stuffs has increased considerably in recent years.
There should be some method of control to keep the price stable as far as possible so that people could and would invest to develop this arm of agriculture. This would encourage the production of more cereals, provide more jobs in manufacturing this material as well as helping small farmers to keep a son at home who could not be supported otherwise on the output of the small holding. It could bring considerable numbers back to the farmyard pattern. I emphasise this because I am not satisfied that we are working in the direction that would give maximum employment in agriculture generally. There would be considerably more jobs if our whole outlook was guided in that direction. We appear to be sitting down because everything is selling well. Our advisory bodies are quite satisfied with the way things are going but things do not continue going unless you think ahead in order to be able to direct output properly and keep on selling more and more, increasing the number of jobs and the money needed to continue development.
I believe we could go back to this pattern. Some 50 or 60 years ago yellow meal was the basic feeding stuff here. Everybody produced pigs and poultry which were a great addition to the farmer's normal output. There is no reason why we cannot have the same pattern today if we can get people to see the advantage of it. The same applies to our cattle. It should be possible to stall-feed or farmyard-feed some of the cattle so as to have a regular supply all year around. It is too easy to fatten them on the grass and it has the disadvantage that they all come on the market in October and November. This happens in every other country also and there are surplus cattle on the market at that time. If we are to maintain a steady input for factories—and we must do this if we are to develop the processing of meat down to the small packets in which it should be produced—we must train and educate farmers and producers in this system. The farmers and the country would be all the better for it.
Horticulture is in a rather poor state. It is amazing that last year we had to import potatoes, and ordinary crops of which we were never short, cabbage and so on. This is another side of agriculture that seems to have no output and does not inspire the enthusiasm it should arouse. One wonders what our Department are doing. This is an activity that should be developed to the maximum. Perhaps the present educational system is at fault. Many students who get their intermediate and leaving certificates think there are white collar jobs everywhere for them. This problem should be examined because the jobs are not there. Many of these young people, even in my own area, will not do ordinary jobs; they will not go behind counters because they have leaving certificates. They end up in Britain where they will sweep the streets and work afterwards in the building trade because they come up against stark reality and discover that while the leaving certificate is good in itself it is not the be-all and end-all. There is a problem in that regard. I see it affecting industry in my own area.
There should be an overall plan because if agriculture is to be developed there must be sufficient people available to produce the goods and develop the country as it can be developed. Educational and agricultural development should go side by side and unless we have a broad plan to cover that objective Departments will be competing against each other, doing their own jobs and not thinking in an integrated way as they should think for the benefit of the country as a whole.
We are very lacking in the production of honey and a considerable amount of it is imported. Again, blame must be attributed to our agricultural experts and advisory services who can secure this type of development. That is a job they should be directed to do. It seems that it is human nature to consider that when things are going well in a certain direction one's job is done but I think these aspects should also be examined. It should be the job of the Department to explore all these possibilities and find out from their advisers in the field why this type of agricultural effort is not pursued. There must be reasons. It would not be very difficult to get those reasons from the advisory services who cover every field in the country. They should know why people are not producing necessary horticultural crops, not producing honey and not doing many other things that can be done. One can only suggest that because of the low level of effort put into this side of production, the utilisation of the advisory services must be suspect.
I have asked many people who are on the dole in my own area of Killorglin why they have not been growing potatoes, or producing turf. They come into our business premises to purchase coal and gas. While I am on the selling side, it hurts me to see raw material there that could be developed and used if people were prepared to put the effort into it. The answer I get when I question them is that they cannot get any labour. I said to one man: "You do not need labour to cut enough turf for yourself. You have a bog in the corner of your land, solid low banks. If you go out only at eleven in the day and take the newspaper and a chair with you you can still cut 200 or 300 sods a day in a certain time and you will have enough turf cut for yourself." He said: "To hell with that. There is no future in that." This is the situation which we face. We have energy lying idle which should be producing the material that will save the import of fuels and so forth that are so costly and certainly should not be sold on my side of the country.
Our thinking is all wrong in this direction. We look for grants to have the roads and drains cleared but then the Department say they have no money. The money should be provided for this to try to help because this all comes within the agricultural sector. The production of fuel is a vital part of the smallholder's way of life and saving on imports of coal and other materials is necessary to the nation because we have to find the hard currency to pay for this material.
I may say here the Department are concerned with doing only their own minimum job. Good as they may be, there is no integrated outlook over the whole field to see that everyone is dovetailing and getting the maximum that should be got. Rather Departments are competing with one another. So long as they get their own job done they are not concerned with others. At Government level and in all organisations in this country we need forward thinking if we are to get over the top and make our place in the world with the great products we have. We must get the outside world to realise that we have meat and different agricultural products fresh from the land that would be accepted on the tables of Europe. We have to ship as quickly as we can to the British markets because they are slowly developing towards making themselves self-sufficient and while that is on the way we should be equally pushing into outside fields in order to be able to sell the materials we need to sell there to enable us to purchase the material we want inwards. In view of the present state of the pound, it is not advisable to be selling to Britain for sterling when Britain are able to sell our cattle afterwards into the European markets for hard currency. As I have stated, we import products many of which we do not need at all because Britain has not anything else to give us we have to take whatever she pushes our way.
The time to deal with the overall pattern is now. Time will be slipping by. We have had very good years in agriculture but they will not always continue. This is the problem because the world can be over-supplied with machinery and heavy industrial goods and industrialised nations can sell that machinery and they will not buy anything from us or anybody else.
We have to keep this outward impression. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries have a very difficult job and a big job but they have to think ahead and keep looking into the future and think of what is likely to happen in nine or ten years' time and whether our directives are helping us towards attaining what we should attain in that period. If this is critical, it is not meant to be entirely critical of the Department. They are doing a good job. They produced a very useful document here but now is the time to consider this overall pattern.
When I was in Europe I spent a lot of time going to the farming areas to see the way of life there and what they were doing. In spite of everything we have not a difficult job. We have expertise, we have better farms, better production, better climate, but we lack that overall drive, that overall thinking to organise our farmers into the type of production that would suit them. This I think lies at the feet of our organisations of agricultural people both out in the fields and here in Dublin. It is time to get together to plan for the future, not to be living in what is happening today because what is happening will not keep happening.
The best field for mass production still lies with the smallholders, if we can get them organised or get them to start that type of production or to harness their efforts into producing something. I have found all too often that the advisory services pass them by because they have enough up-to-date farmers and they are able to keep their books right and able to convince the authorities that everything is going well. The productive farmer, the good farmer, is moving away and the small man is left behind. Unfortunately, he is getting depressed about this but it does not mean a terrific future for himself, particularly with costs today. Advisory services should be turned in on those people now and let them forget the better farmer. Let him plough his own furrow. He has had full advice all too long. Let us see what can be done with those small people. They can produce root crops. They can do many different things that will help the nation to produce animal feeds and help with horticulture and so forth which can find a ready market outside.
Milk appears to be on the increase. I have stated that we should be examining the possibility of developing it into finished products. I again ask the Department to get their advisors and technical people, particularly if they have them out in Europe, to examine the possibility of getting outside firms in here with the skills to turn our milk into an acceptable finished product. Certainly milk goes up and down in price from time to time but there are many by-products produced in other countries which we should be able to develop here and attract the industrialists and which would have the advantage of tax free concessions. It is a wide field and one in which I understand there is vast development taking place in America. If we leave it all in the hands of the IDA—who see only the necessity of creating an industry—it will not be as effective. I do not know whether there are personnel within that body who are au fait with every aspect of farm production and the necessity for the advancement of that type of raw material. Perhaps there are but we have not seen any great productive effort arising from their excursions abroad, if that is the term one should use.
There is vast potential in the overall pattern of agriculture. I am convinced that it holds potential for at least 20,000 jobs and, perhaps, even more, if we but followed up the processing of our agricultural raw materials. It would provide jobs for people in rural areas in particular because that is where such raw materials exist. I would ask both the Minister and his Department to give this very serious consideration. If we could but unite the effort of every Department for the benefit of this great arm of our industry then we would have a chance of getting somewhere.
Our farmers are advancing. Our young farmers particularly are doing a tremendous job. I see them in my own area. They take two nights a week off for leisure when they take their wives with them. This appears to be part of today's pattern and, I believe, it is a good thing because they work very hard for the remaining nights of the week. I notice them working at 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock and even 10 o'clock in their farmyards milling grain and so on. It would be easy to lead these young farmers into the type of effort that would produce commodities of a quality one might not get too easily in other parts of the world. It is the job of the Department to lead these industrious, energetic young farmers to undertake the type of work that will best serve the country.
I said yesterday that our external trade amounted to £1,441 million, of which agriculture amounted to £596.2 million. Of that £366.2 million went to Britain and £175 million to other countries. Here lies the job for our developers. The faster we get away from this dependence on the British market the better it will be for ourselves. Our imports reached a total of £1,700 million, a difference of £259 million. We must get more material into Europe to enable us earn the hard currency which will assist our industries. Agriculture is the main channel through which we can get such hard currency. Every bit of material we can get into Europe must earn hard currency for us.
At present Britain are getting our cattle into Europe. It is a well-known fact that, under their subsidy scheme, they purchase so many animals at the beginning of the year. If they can, they like to get three- or four-year-old cattle and carry them on their farms for 12 months. They are supposed to hold such fat cattle for two months after they have purchased them on the Dublin markets. But they take them and reship them the following morning for export to Europe, to Germany and Holland. This is the job we should be doing. If we have the fat cattle and we have to export them on the hoof, why cannot we export them direct? Why should we allow our cattle to go out through that channel and lose the hard currency they should be earning for us? Surely our agricultural people in Britain must know this is taking place. We must halt that practice now and step out on our own. Perhaps cattle exporters here who were involved in that type of procedure in the past do not want to see their way of living hit. I suppose it is understandable that they would try to channel things to serve themselves but that is not serving the nation. That is why we must take a hard look at what is happening, get the best out of anything we have to export and ensure that it is to our advantage.
I am proud of the farmers in my own area—not big farmers by any means, 40 or 50 acres, some a bit more and some a bit less—who are doing a tremendous job. They have a great way of life. I like their outlook on life. They have energy, courage and ability. They and their wives very largely make up the clientele of singing pubs on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. That is a good thing because, all too often in the past, the wives were left at home while the husbands went their own way. Now the husbands and wives seem to share the farming activities. There seems to be a great unity of purpose. With real thinking, guidance and leadership, we could get our young farmers into the type of production and activity necessary for the country as a whole. Such guidance and leadership can come only from those Departments which have the farmers interests and their future at heart.
I am asking the Department and the Minister to involve themselves in this type of thinking in regard to our agricultural arm because this is the best seller in the country. We have the energy and ability, but our farmers need leadership and advice to devise new markets and new methods of production. Above all, farmers need leadership and I am not at all happy about the way this is being provided.
