(Limerick West) asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will make a statement with regard to a speech made recently by the Minister of State at his Department on the occasion of the annual dinner of the Irish Agricultural Advisers Organisation, that efforts to accelerate growth in agricultural output must concentrate on that segment of the farming population which has real development potential.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Agricultural Development.
9.
The recent speech by the Minister of State to the Irish Agricultural Advisers Organisation restated Government policy on efforts to accelerate growth in agricultural output and was in line with paragraph 2.41 of the national plan.
(Limerick West): It disturbs me that the emphasis on advice will be to the farmer with the greatest potential and it is even more disturbing that the other farmers will now be neglected——
That is comment, could we have a question?
(Limerick West): If you will allow me to develop my question——
If developing a question involves making a speech, it is not in order.
(Limerick West): Will farmers who are not in this segment be neglected and deprived of the advice and assistance which they got heretofore?
I wish to reassure the Deputy in that regard. There will be no neglect of any other category of farmer. Emphasis was placed on the middle band of farmers because of representations made by the IFA, the General Council of Committees of Agriculture, the National Board of Science and Technology and the four year plan for agriculture. These people are involved in fairly hefty expenditure and they need comprehensive technical advice which the specialised service in ACOT will be able to provide. I attended a meeting of the directors of ACOT recently and it was emphasised that we should not neglect the people who are not in that category. For instance — this may come as a surprise — 75 per cent of the middle band of clients have less than 100 acres and under 60 livestock units. It is clear, therefore, that average farmers are included in the middle band.
Does the Minister agree that because of the complete withdrawal of grant aid over the last two years for the low category of farmers, there is a concentration on the one third of the farmers in the higher bracket? Does the Minister also agree that a farmer, irrespective of the size of his farm, who works to a plan and keeps accounts is entitled to the maximum support and assistance to develop his holding?
He will be getting the maximum help and, if he shows enthusiasm and is identified by his local ACOT adviser as a person who is keen to go ahead, he can be included in that band of farmers.
Does the Minister agree that many farmers in the other category who did not have the acreage to go into development farming have not received grant aid over the last two years and four months?
When the new farm modernisation scheme is in operation, it will probably be more liberal in regard to that type of farmer. However, I reiterate that size is not the deciding factor when it comes to development. For instance, if someone goes in for intensive horticulture, we could be talking about five acres.
Does the Minister agree that he is supporting the present acreage programme and concentrating on about 40,000 farmers on a client based-list? Is there any programme for farmers who are not on that list and, if not, would the Minister give an undertaking that he will ask ACOT to formulate a programme for the 100,000 farmers who are not on the client-based list at present?
ACOT have identified about 63,000 farmers who received priority for advisory attention because of their development potential and their enthusiasm to advance. As I said already, ACOT have stated quite clearly that they will continue to provide farmers outside the priority category with a service appropriate to their needs. In addition, those farmers can participate in ACOT's educational programmes by way of lectures, demonstrations, clinics and farm visits as required.
Can the Minister clarify whether a directive has issued from his Department to ACOT to concentrate on the farmers with the high development levels, those at almost full development potential? What is his attitude and that of his ministerial colleagues and the officials in his Department to the other 100,000 farmers or so who need almost full time advice in order to bring them up to a reasonable level of development?
I will quote the Government's statement on the matter. The Government believe that efforts to accelerate growth in agricultural output must concentrate on that segment of the farming population which has real development potential.
ACOT, therefore, is being asked to concentrate its advisory services on those farmers who have the resources and the motivation to achieve such development. The reorganisation and restructuring of the advisory services with a new emphasis on client enterprise advisers organised on a local district basis will provide the best framework within which assistance can be provided to those with the greatest potential.
(Limerick West): Can the Minister give an assurance to the House that there will be no charge for ACOT's services to farmers?
I can give no such indication.
(Limerick West): So we can expect charges.
10.
asked the Minister for Agriculture if he has developed any policies for encouraging farmers to invest in production other than beef, dairying and cereals; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Investment aid, in the form of grants under the farm modernisation scheme, is available for most types of agriculture production. It is for farmers themselves, in consultation with their advisers, to determine the most appropriate product mix for their farms.
As indicated in the national plan, the process of adjustment to the new circumstances in the European Community will require diversification of production, but a continuing need also exists for investment in our major product categories in order to improve production efficiency.
The Minister's reply was the sort of reply I expected. It is the type of reply which Ministers for Agriculture have given down through the years. Have the Minister, the Minister of State and the Department thought out any new policies for developing other new products in farming? Are they relying on the next thing to come from the EC before deciding what they will do? It is not enough for the Minister to say it is up to farmers to decide what they will do if the Minister is not giving them help, training, advice, encouragement, or incentives to do something else.
We are there at all times to give advice and that is as far as we can go. Farmers will decide to do their own thing. They have been quite successful at that. We can still go a long way down the road with regard to beef production and cereals. We are not self-sufficient in cereals. Much can be done with regard to milling wheat. We are working with ACOT. Deputies who went to the Spring Show will have seen what is happening with regard to sheep production, with special emphasis on the French market where the scope is. We have farm modernisation grants for sheep wintering accommodation, for housing for pigs, for the storage of potatoes and horticultural produce. On a day to day basis we are looking at every possible line of production to see how it can be improved and expanded.
Is the Minister in touch with his colleague the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism who announced recently a major new emphasis on food processing and an investment in the order of £50 million? The IDA are to be encouraged to go into that area. Are they co-operating to ensure that there will be increased production in the food processing area?
There is very good co-operation. We have regular discussions with people in his Department and people in the IDA from who I am getting the utmost co-operation with regard to new ideas. New projects take a certain amount of time. We cannot jump into something overnight and hope to make a success of it. We must look at the market place and see whether we can compete in it, and take it from there. The Deputy can be assured that we are looking at every possible line of activity.
(Limerick West): Are there plans in the Department for diversification and the promotion of farmyard enterprises? The Minister said there is overproduction in certain areas in Europe.
I do not accept that we have overproduction in that many areas. We have peaked in dairying and sugar beets. There is still massive scope for high protein cereals and feed cereals.
(Limerick West): There are proposals to reduce the price of cereals.
Price is a factor but it is not everything. As a grower of cereals let me assure the Deputy that yields are much more important than price. Properly managed cereals can be very lucrative. I do not accept that we cannot grow more cereals. We should be growing more cereals. The same applies to horticultural produce. One of the snags is that we have a small market place. There is the danger that if you advise everybody to go headlong into any type of farm produce you may flood the market and ruin the livelihoods of people already producing in that area. Recently I was very pleased to help a group of people who are hoping to export fresh horticultural produce to the British Midlands.
(Limerick West): What about my question about farmyard enterprises?
We have pig production and poultry production. Some people in Deputy Walsh's constituency would not agree with me and have not done so in the past, but one of the problems about small farm enterprise is that they have not been very successful. Poultry egg production and pig production have developed into very big farmyard enterprises. Mushroom production in Deputy Leonard's area has been highly successful. We do not want everybody to jump into mushroom production and put all Deputy Leonard's farmers out of production. We have a limited number of people on the glasshouse side of the production. We have helped them with grants.
This is a very interesting debate but it is not in order at Question Time.
Would the Minister consider setting up a section in the Department to examine enterprises which have been discontinued? For instance, take flax. There were trials in a county which was not foremost in the production of flax.
Deputy Walsh would not agree.
We need an in depth examination of these enterprises. The seed potato enterprise was one of the highest money earners for farmers in Monaghan a few years ago. We have a potato marketing board which could market them. All the enterprises which have been discontinued should be reexamined.
We are looking at flax very seriously. I hope we will have a small commercial operation in 1986. There is a demand for the product. Far too often in the past we were inclined to start in the field and hope to be able to sell. We should find out what people are buying and produce that. I hope I am spearheading a number of different ideas. Some will succeed and some will fail. It is worth giving them a run. We are doing that with quite a few projects. I am not saying they will all be successful.
This is a very wide question, but Deputies will appreciate that it is not possible to debate everything that might be done in farming or that might be considered. We would be here until Christmas.
The Minister referred to the very small market we have. He mentioned mushrooms and said that if everybody produces mushrooms they will put others out of business, and so on. Is the Minister considering that the EC market is merely for beef, dairy products and cereals, the other products being solely for the domestic market? Surely he will recall that when joining the Community we were told that there was being opened up to us a market of 250 million people. Does the Minister accept that that market is open to all products?
Of course I accept that and I trust that I have not given any impression to the contrary. The difficulties being experienced in some areas by people engaged in horticulture is that the markets are monopolised already by huge multinationals and that presents a problem of access to any such market. Regarding mushrooms, for instance, Deputy Leonard's people are eminently successful in gaining access to the UK and Scottish markets. Our own small plant, Midleton Food Products, now have access to the UK market because of involvement with a small UK group but I realise that this is a difficult area.