asked the Minister for Agriculture the number of non-viable farm holdings there are in the country; and the procedures he will adopt to make such farms viable.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Non-Viable Farm Holdings.
21.
A wide variety of factors affect the economic circumstances of any farm and it would not be practicable to attempt to assess the "viability" of all farms in the country even if an objective and satisfactory definition of this term could be agreed. However, all of the Governments' agricultural policies, and particularly those relating to farm structures, are aimed at facilitating and promoting the development of our farms. As I indicated in a reply to a parliamentary question on 7 May new measures to improve the efficiency of agricultural structures will be implemented later this year on foot of a new EC Directive.
Will the Minister indicate the total number of acres that have not come up to full production?
I cannot. That would be a considerable job. As regards viability, it comes back to the question I referred to some time ago. It is impossible to define it. A market gardner could be quite viable on one acre and a medium sized farm would not be viable on 40 or 50 acres. It is not something that can be clearly defined.
I do not accept the Minister's reply.
The Deputy must ask a question.
Considering that we recently had an extension of the severely handicapped areas, that we have the Agricultural Institute operating for a long number of years and that there is a large group of people working in the economic division of the Department of Agriculture, surely the man charged with the responsibility of leading the development of Irish agriculture has an idea at least within each province of the number of fallow acres throughout the land?
The officials of my Department would need about 12 months' notice of this question. One could hardly assimilate all that knowledge in a few days.
What has been going on for so many years?
The best I can say is that there are about 223,500 agricultural holdings in the country. The fact that a great deal of these would be in disadvantaged areas does not mean that they are all unviable. A considerable number of them would be viable.
The remaining questions will appear on next Tuesday's Order Paper.