Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Jan 1999

Vol. 499 No. 2

Adjournment Debate. - Fodder Relief Scheme.

Mr. Deenihan

There are in the region of eight million cattle in this State, the highest on record. We have a grave shortage of fodder because some areas have experienced the worst weather conditions in living memory. Prices for cattle have collapsed. The price of a round bale of silage, which would normally cost £16, has increased to £30. The price for a small bale of hay which would normal cost £1 has increased, in some places to £4. This has put major financial stress on small farmers.

Meat factories are turning away cattle. Cattle minus ear tags have been abandoned by farmers who could not afford to feed them. In some cases they have been forced to shoot starving cattle to put them out of their misery. We saw on the RTE news last night the horrifying sight of cattle and sheep that died of starvation.

The fodder crisis was well signalled last June and July when farmers in the west were forced to feed their cattle silage because the land was too wet for them to graze on it. As a result fodder supplies were depleted well before the onset of winter.

Last autumn farmers held on to cattle hoping prices would improve. They were misled by the Minister's empty promises. He promised that the Libyan market would open within a matter of weeks. The weeks have turned to months, but the Libyan market has not reopened. The question must be asked whether there was any possibility that it would reopen.

In an article in today's The Irish Times the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Andrews, is reported to have made a promise about the Iranian market. Farmers are sick to death of false promises. They want to see these markets opening up. If they open, the Minister can then take the credit, but farmers do not want to read misleading information, such as this, in the newspapers.

The Minister and the Government's response to date has been pathetic and borders on arrogance. A half-baked fodder scheme was announced before the ploughing championships in October; it was not fully thought out, it was under-funded and it was not based on a scientific survey. As my Fine Gael colleagues and I pointed out to the Minister, this was only a drop in the ocean when considering the magnitude of the crisis. The Minister's response in the Dáil was to fob off the crisis on to other agencies and organisations. He said that these organisations should help out with current difficulties rather than always looking to the taxpayer to foot the cost of paying compensation.

The Minister seems to be persistent with his promises. In an article in today's Irish Independent he is reported to have promised a £30 million fodder scheme which is to be announced next week. What farmers need is a scheme, not the promise of one. I call on the Minister to carry out a proper survey of the affected areas by ensuring that all farmers who have a fodder shortage should be visited to determine their fodder requirement on the basis of cattle numbers and availability of fodder and early grazing. The last survey by Teagasc was carried out only on its clients' farms and excluded those who were not in a position to pay for the service. Therefore, many of the less well off farmers were excluded from the survey. Anything less than a £1,000 fodder grant will be of little use to many of the most hard pressed farmers at this stage. I understand the Minister's proposal to be a maximum grant of £500 in designated DEDs, but this will not suffice.

The performance of the Government to date has been anti rural Ireland, probably the worst in the history of this State. The policy seems to be clear – allow market forces to determine the number of farmers who will survive with as little Government intervention as possible. This may not be the Minister's policy but it seems to be the Government's. This policy would sound the death-knell for rural Ireland.

It has been estimated fairly scientifically that the cost of maintaining a herd of 20 cows from now until mid-April would be approximately £3,320. That is what the Minister must take into account when he is considering this new promised and long awaited grant scheme.

Minister for Agriculture and Food (Mr. Walsh)

I am very pleased to have the opportunity of setting out the details of the fodder scheme and other actions already implemented to help to alleviate difficulties being faced by farmers.

The unusually wet weather in summer and autumn 1998 combined with below normal sunshine resulted in reduced grass growth throughout the country. In the peaty and heavy clay soil areas of certain counties, the capability of farmers to make silage and hay was greatly reduced. While the situation improved significantly in some areas in August, the broken weather in September added to the fodder difficulty in the most seriously affected areas. In addition, farmers in such areas had great difficulty allowing animals to graze such lands and many animals had to be brought indoors, further exacerbating the winter fodder problems.

Teagasc carried out an assessment of the winter fodder position on 12-13 August 1998. The results showed there were significant problems in the heavy wet land of the north-west and south-west with lesser problems in other wet land areas.

Teagasc reviewed the situation in early September and a report was forwarded to my Department on 16 September 1998. As agreed in discussions between my officials and Teagasc, the report concentrated specifically on the worst affected areas. The following are the worst affected areas listed in the Teagasc report – County Leitrim, west Cavan, north Roscommon, along the rivers Shannon and Suck, north Longford, Sligo, Mayo, Donegal, Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Galway.

On 21 October 1998 I announced the details of a fodder scheme, directed at all sheep farmers with mountain grazings, suckler cow producers and small dairy farmers with milk quotas of less than 35,000 gallons in 753 district electoral divisions in the worst affected areas, based on a Teagasc survey published in September. The counties concerned were Cavan, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo. The number of DEDs was subsequently revised upwards to 873 or 50 per cent of all DEDs in the 12 counties concerned. While the main purpose of the scheme was to alleviate hardship, I was conscious of the need to protect the breeding herd.

The payment rates were as follows: sheep farmers with mountain ewes received £4 per ewe or hogget up to 75 head; suckler cow farmers received £40 per suckler cow up to a ceiling of 7.5 cows; and small scale dairy farmers, those with a quota of less than 35,000 gallons, received £30 per 1,000 gallons up to 10,000 gallons. Payments were made under the scheme in mid-December as follows – 43,969 suckler cow and hill sheep farmers received £10.835 million, and 6,581 dairy farmers received £1.294 million, giving a total expenditure to date of £12.129 million.

Teagasc recently prepared a further report on winter fodder. The general line is that a difficult position exists on a number of farms due to continued wet weather, high stock levels on farms, earlier winter feeding because of difficult ground conditions and poor silage quality. The worst affected areas listed are Cavan, Monaghan, Clare, Donegal, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo in the "north region"; and Kerry, west and north-west Cork, west Limerick and certain limited areas of Laois and Tipperary in the "south region". It is worth noting that some parts of the country have adequate supplies of fodder. The Government has decided a further scheme should be introduced to help farmers in the worst affected areas and its details are currently being drawn up.

I undertook a number of major initiatives during the latter half of 1998 to support farmers. I mentioned the fodder scheme, which provided in excess of £12 million directly from the Exchequer; there was also £2 million in ewe premium top-up and a further £6 million in the quality ewe scheme, among other schemes. In total, some £21 million was paid out in Christmas week. Now, four weeks later, I have approval from the Government to finance and draw up a further scheme of assistance to farmers in the worst affected areas. It is not the easiest job in the world to provide money quickly, easily and effectively while at the same time targeting it at those most in need. For a fully targeted scheme we would have to advertise it, receive applications, send out inspectors, receive their reports, and instal a payment system, that would take several months. By its nature, if one wants to make a speedy payment, which I do, one has to use a fairly blunt instrument.

The improvements brought about by negotiation include substantial increases in export refunds for beef, the introduction of considerable aid to private storage of sheepmeat, and improvements in access to intervention for heavier cattle – that intervention has been continued into the first three months of this year. We have also increased the rate of advance payment under the suckler cow and special beef premia, and speeded up all payments to farmers.

It is worth noting that up to Christmas Day 1998 more than £1 billion was paid in cheques directly to farmers. They were entitled to those payments as compensatory payments but it is a substantial amount of money. The payments were speeded up and the increase from 60 per cent to 80 per cent made it an all time record. On top of that, we introduced a special package of almost £21 million, including £12 million in fodder payments, £6 million for mountain ewe destocking and almost £3 million in sheep headage top-up. We approved additional shipping capacity for the export of livestock – despite numerous criticisms of the lack of livestock transport facilities, more than three times as many live cattle were exported from Ireland last year compared with the two previous years.

We also made intervention barley available to the feed trade. Our newspapers and television news programmes are showing underfed cattle but, apart from the fodder in the yards of those farmers who were able to store it, 20,000 tonnes of animal feed is in storage in Ireland. Last week the Department released 2,000 tonnes of that in order to help but only 300 tonnes was sought by our compounders. Some of those companies are co-ops which are owned and controlled by farmers, so it is strange that farmers, their co-ops, and farming organisations are not making more of an effort to ensure that best use is made of the adequate amount of fodder in the country. If farmers are increasing the price of bales from £15 to £30 they are affecting their neighbours who are in difficulty and this is not the best time to take advantage of cruel circumstances to make a quick buck.

As well as those measures the Government introduced a farm assist scheme to help to those with income and cashflow difficulties in the worst affected areas. That is an effort to improve what was known as the "farmers' dole". Twice as many people will qualify under the farm assist scheme as under the old scheme. The problem is that the Social Welfare Bill, under which the scheme will be regulated, will not be through the House until later in the year. Nonetheless, the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs is seeing how he can expedite the introduction of the scheme to be of further assistance.

All these measures have helped support farm incomes at what I recognise is an extremely difficult time, especially for small farmers and those in wetland areas. In addition to the above, a further fodder scheme is in preparation and I hope to be in a position to announce it within days rather than weeks. I do not need any convincing about the difficult position prevailing on certain farms and I have faced up to my responsibilities in that regard. My actions have been many and decisive and I will continue to take all positive steps to protect the interests of farmers.