asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food, given that the importation of cereal substitutes is on the increase into the EC and also that there is an increase in the co-responsibility and a reduction in VAT refunds, his views on whether cereal farming is at an unfair disadvantage.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cereal Farming.
50.
Cereal producers' margins have been under pressure over the past few years because of EC measures to curb expenditure and competition from imported cereal substitutes.
The additional co-responsibility levy will, of course, apply only if Community cereal production exceeds 160 million tonnes. Small cereal producers will also be exempt from both the basic and additional levies in respect of the first 25 tonnes of cereals marketed.
The European Council has called on the EC Commission to press for an appropriate solution to problems arising from imports of cereal substitutes into the Community.
The recent decision of the Council of Ministers to devalue the green £ by 1.55 per cent from 1 January next will improve the competitive position of cereal production.
There is no point in the Minister bandying about this farm income survey which showed that farm incomes have been increased by 31 per cent when they are in fact 6 per cent below their 1984 level. Would the Minister say whether the Council of Ministers can do anything to improve the incomes of cereal producers? In 1984, as a practising farmer, I managed to get £145 for green barley whereas, in 1988, I expect to be able to get between £90 and £100 for the same commodity. It would appear that, before long, cereal farmers will have to be put in glass cages; otherwise they will become extinct——
I want to help the Deputy but he may not make a speech at Question Time.
What are the Minister's views on the set-aside proposal?
I might make a couple of general points first. I agree with the Deputy that cereal producers have experienced difficult times — incidentally, all over Europe and, in other places, perhaps even more severe than here. In the current season cereal producers are benefiting from firm cereal prices brought about by a relative scarcity of quality cereals on world markets and, in particular, drought problems encountered in a number of producer countries, including the United States, Canada and Eastern Europe.
I would advise cereal producers that their prospects are not at all bad now for a number of reasons. I would advise them to concentrate on supplying commodities on demand in markets, such as malting barley, quality feed wheat and barley because it is in their production their prospects lie. With regard to the European dimension, I want to assure the Deputy that I was very much involved in getting the Council to agree to a limitation on cereal substitutes — which I do know poses a major problem here — and to opening negotiations in relation to the control of cereal substitutes into the Community. The House should remember that small producers have been exempted from the co-responsibility levy. The set-aside programme will be voluntary for the individual producers but it will have to be brought forward shortly and finally by the Council and we, as well as the other member states, will act on it. I expect a formal, final proposal very shortly.
A sum of £80 per acre does not compare very well with the income of a dairy farmer.
I am not saying it does.