I move:—
That in the opinion of Seanad Eireann, and in the absence of guaranteed minimum prices, there should be a declaration of Government policy to the effect that surplus produce on the lands of farmers who have complied with the Compulsory Tillage Order, 1941, will be purchased at a price which will not involve the farmer in financial loss by reason of his having complied with the terms of the order.
The members of this House and the people of the country are at one in their desire to get the maximum production from the land during 1941. I have already put down more than one motion in the hope that we would get the means to effect and bring about this increased production which we all desire. These motions were not accepted by the House or by the Government but I make no apology whatever for coming back to the question. The danger that will confront the country if the land is not made to do something which it has not done for a great many years is being borne in upon us more clearly now than it was previously.
I should like to make a mild protest against a number of the admonitions, exhortations and kindly advice being tendered to our farmers by quite a number of respectable and responsible people up and down the country, with a view to getting them to work harder and to produce more. These people take no account of the consideration that the farmer should get a just price for his labour. The one outstanding exception amongst these exhortations was that of the Lord Bishop of Killaloe. Apart from the advocacy of his Lordship, I have not seen where one of the people who are urging a policy of greater production pointed out that, as a corollary, the farmer should be justly paid for the produce which he will make available to the people by harder work and longer hours. Just treatment should be our first consideration. I suggest that the people who are pressing our farmers to be more patriotic than ever before and to work harder than they have done in the past should balance that advice by saying that the farmer should secure a just return for the labour he gives and for the produce he places at the people's disposal.
We are urged to increase production in the name of patriotism but farmers in the past have not been slow in demonstrating their patriotism. Quite a number of us in the past put everything we had into the melting pot—farms, homes and the interest of our families. Quite a number of farmers would be prepared to do the same again but a great many realise that, while noble deeds are done and great sacrifices made in the name of patriotism, the reward from the people is frequently not commensurate with the sacrifices made. A great many of our farmers, hard pressed as they have been over a number of years, have been asking themselves: "What are we capable of doing and what is expected of us in the name of patriotism?" I realise—and I am sure the House and the country generally realise—that we are being thrown back on our own resources now to an extent we have not experienced in the past. In my judgment—I think I have said this previously—all the resources which can be made available to the farmers of this State to enable them to save and to keep hunger away from all homes, should be made available. That has not been done and it is not being done. To-day we are asking, I think, for, approximately, 2,700,000 acres of tillage. Last year we expected an additional 1,000,000 acres. We did not get anything like it. We got close on 2,000,000 acres last year. We are wanting an additional 700,000 acres now. May I point out that for 700,000 acres of tillage the Government are giving a guaranteed price, that is, those 700,000 acres would represent the maximum requirements of wheat and sugar beet, but for 2,000,000 acres there is no guarantee whatever and no indication as to what compensation the farmer is to get for the crops he is expected to harvest from those 2,000,000 acres.
A few days ago I was discussing this question with a man whom I regard, and whom I think the Minister would regard, as being an authority on agriculture in this country. I put him the question: "What would you do if you were given the task of providing from our land enough food to supply all the needs of our people and our animal population?" His answer to me was: "Millions would not stop me." In my view that is the way to do it. Millions ought to be made available if it is necessary. If you have not the food, money cannot buy it. These millions can be made available if the Government will face up to the situation with courage and imagination.
What is the argument against giving the guarantee for which I ask? One point which will be made, of course, is that there will be such a demand for food that it is absolutely certain nothing will be left on the farmer's hands and, accordingly, he does not want any guarantee for what he would produce. If that be the answer, I say the Government are incurring no risk whatever in telling the farmers of the country: "Go on with your job; if there is anything left on your hands we will see you will not incur any loss by reason of your increased production." I say here, too, that it is a very risky policy for the Government to permit our food supplies to be so short that they are quite certain that everything we produce will be absorbed by ourselves here. I think they ought to make certain of having a margin over. It is not enough to have food in your home for to-day; there ought to be a little for to-morrow.
If the Government are satisfied that our total production is going to be used up, and at a price which will pay the farmers for growing it, the Ministry and the Government are taking no risk whatever. If the Government give this guarantee and tell the farmers that they are going to stand in if they get into difficulties, immediately there would be brought about a condition of stability in agriculture which has been lacking and which even to-day is lacking. A most extraordinary position exists at the moment, a situation tending towards inflation. There has been and there is now a considerable amount of speculation with regard to agricultural commodities. There was such a position in regard to oats early in the year, and that probably applies to other crops now, even to wheat. That is not good. I believe it is fundamentally unsound for the nation and bad for agriculture to have that sort of speculation and instability. It is much better that the farmer should have a reasonable return for his labour than to be running into a period of high prices when the speculator is putting a value upon what he produces out of all proportion to its real worth. In the end somebody must pay. The poor who cannot obtain the goods suffer, and in the end it is all passed back to the farmer.
On the other hand there is, I suppose, the possible dread on the part of the Government that if there were considerable quantities of crops on the farmer's hands which the farmer could neither profitably feed to stock nor to humans and if the responsibility was on the Government to take these over and do something with them, the Government would be involved in considerable financial obligations and possibly in loss. If the Government is not prepared to face a situation of that kind I think it is manifestly unjust that the farmers, a minority of the community, who are giving a service to the community as a whole in time of trial and difficulty, should have to carry the burden and bear that loss. I think it is unjust; I think it is a condition of things which you should not ask our farmers to face. If the farmers anticipated such a state of affairs they would be justified in refusing to enter into increased production of food either for the people of the country or for the animals. I would hope for a wider outlook on the part of the Government and on the part of the community as a whole. I would hope that our farmers would be told: "Go ahead; work hard and work long hours; employ labour; do everything you can with your fields; sow all the crops you can; make certain of one thing, that you will produce enough food for our people and for your own livestock, and we will see that you will not incur any loss by the pursuance of such a policy." If that were said by the Government the attitude of our farmers towards this whole problem of increased tillage—especially of many farmers who have not had experience of a tillage policy for a great many years—would be very different from what it is.
Even the tillage farmers know how unstable the scheme of agriculture has been where for a number of years they have been dependent on the growing of grain crops. The policy which was pursued here for a number of years undoubtedly altered the trend of our agricultural policy and influenced to a considerable extent the animal and poultry population of this country. There could have been another way and a better way.
In the first place, none of us is able to look into the future. We do not know what may happen within 12 months. Some people are calculating that the war is going to continue for a year or two or three. If a blockade is waged against us for as long as that the farmer must get a price, and he will get a price, but who knows what other changes may take place in the international situation which may alter completely the outlook? I think we must guard against that and at the same time we must see what we have accomplished in the last 12 months and make comparisons with our achievements as against the achievements of farmers and Governments elsewhere.
In 1939 I moved a motion in this House asking for a guaranteed minimum price for all tillage crops arising out of the application of the Compulsory Tillage Order. That was rejected by the Government. I believe they were unwise. I am now convinced that they were very unwise. To-day in this country we are short of a great many commodities that we could have grown in our own fields and which the farmers would have grown if they had been given those guarantees which were within the competence of the Government to give. Possibly before next harvest comes we will be short of animal food and food for humans. Our farmers would have produced it from our own fields if they had been given those guarantees. I challenge anyone who says to me: "The farmers will not do it." In my experience—if I am to be contradicated let me be contradicted by someone who knows better—the farmer does what pays. The farmer has just as much sense about pounds, shillings and pence as anyone else, and will engage in that type of agricultural production which will pay him best. He has done it in the past. He would have done it in 1940 had the Minister faced up to that motion and given those guarantees. I know, of course, that some people are saying this is not the time for the farmers to hold the community up to ransom. There are farmers here and there, or people who are playing at farming, saying that kind of thing. I must say that I have discussed this whole problem with a great many people who are entirely engaged in the occupation of farming, and I never yet heard a farmer say that he did not want a guaranteed price for the commodities he produced, nor did I ever hear any one of them say he would not take it if he got it.
Let us look at what others have done. In the first place, the British Minister for Agriculture has issued a declaration of Government policy indicating that during the war and for one year after they are going to give a guaranteed minimum price for all crops. You will have noticed in the papers to-day that the New Zealand Government are undertaking to guarantee the price of meat exported from that country. Look at what they did in the North in 1940. We here asked for an additional 1,000,000 acres under the plough. The Minister, in his speech in the Dáil —a speech which, I may say, despite criticism from certain other people, I would commend—indicated that we had succeeded in getting approximately an additional 300,000 acres tilled in the Twenty-Six Counties last year. Mind you, we asked for an additional 1,000,000 acres, at least Ministers talked about 1,000,000 acres—I think the Minister present here talked about it—but we got only 300,000 acres. In the Six Counties they asked for an additional 200,000 acres under the plough and they actually got 260,000 acres. They got 260,000 acres in the Six Counties, and we could get only 300,000 acres in the Twenty-Six counties. What is wrong with us? Are our farmers more lazy and less go-ahead than the farmers up there? I do not think so. We are just as tough, and we can work just as hard. From the point of view of patriotism they have just as much reason to answer to the patriotic call at the moment as we have, at least if you are to judge them from the protestations which they frequently make. But there was this very great difference, and this very great incentive to the policy which they were asked to pursue when compared with what we were being asked to do.
In the Six Counties there was a subsidy of £2 per acre for every additional acre of land of seven year old lea put under the plough. They guaranteed a minimum price for potatoes. They guaranteed a minimum price for oats. They guaranteed a minimum price for milk. The price which they gave for potatoes is working out at approximately £5 per ton on a farm at the present time. The price for oats is working out at about 12/- or 13/- on the farm. They did this with their farmers; not alone did they give them a guaranteed price for their potatoes, the equivalent of £5 at the present time, but they subsidised the purchase of those same potatoes by the farmers. After receiving £5 per ton for their potatoes the farmers were able to purchase back their own potatoes to feed to their own stock at 55/- per ton, and at the moment they are selling their pork at about 104/- or 105/-, fed on potatoes which are costing them £2 15s. 0d. per ton, after getting the balance between that and £5. We to-day are getting approximately the same price for our pork, 105/-, but we are not getting this sort of assistance. They have been similarly guaranteed with regard to their oats, their poultry, their eggs and their milk. This is very interesting for the dairying counties. During the winter months they have been given 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 per gallon for their milk at their creameries. They got 1½d. less if they preferred to take the separated milk back home. In addition, at the moment their eggs are commanding anything from 6/- to 8/- per 100 more than ours are value for here.
Will somebody tell me that those encouragements have not been responsible, entirely responsible, for the immense increase in tillage in the Six Counties? In my judgment they have been so responsible. In my opinion they are essential. I suggest that their costs of production are certainly not higher in the Six Counties than ours are here. I am not going into that, because I am not making an argument for one place as against another. I am pointing out what the people in the Six Counties regarded as essential in order to get their farmers to pursue the kind of policy they wanted them to pursue in the emergency through which we are all passing. We got 300,000 additional acres of tillage in 1940. I would put it to the Minister present: What would our position be to-day had we got another 300,000 acres? If we now had crops—potatoes and oats, if nothing else—from an additional 300,000 acres of tillage, we would be in a far better position to feed our people and our live stock. We would have got those additional acres had the Government given us the guaranteed minimum prices asked for in 1939, and it would not have cost the Exchequer one penny. I think the time has come for all of us to appreciate that this job of feeding ourselves is a very big one, but it is vital to our very existence, and no money can maintain order and stability if we have neglected to provide food for the population. It will not save either the Government or the leaders of public opinion or thought in this country if, from the land of this country in 1941, we are not able to obtain as much food as is necessary for our home requirements. The way to ensure that that will be made available is to tell the farmers that no matter what produce they have over after the country's requirements are met, they are not going to incur any loss.
There are all sorts of problems facing our farmers, and we have been stressing many of them in this House. We know that a great many farms are under-stocked and under-capitalised. We know that many of the farmers are poorly equipped to meet the problems that are now arising. We know there are others prepared to rent land for the purpose of cultivating it if they had any assurance that they would not lose by doing so. I do not want to see a policy of speculation engaged in with regard to our soil. We ought to have some definite aim. Under existing conditions, after taking stock of the problems which confront us, we ought to make our minds up that we have here an opportunity to do something for ourselves which we have not been doing in the past. I feel that in this matter the Minister is not very far away from the point of view that I hold. For a number of years we have been engaged in the practice of importing considerable quantities of raw materials for the purpose of feeding animals which are either sold off the land or are killed here and sold. We cannot engage in that practice much longer.
If the farmers are given a chance, if they are given encouragement and assured of stability, I believe they are prepared to do their share. I believe a definite declaration of policy, along the lines I suggest in this motion, will be tantamount to a credit note for every farmer. The farmer would then be able to say to a banker, a shopkeeper, or anybody else: "I have ten acres here and the Government have stated that whatever I produce off that land will be taken from me at a price that will not involve me in any loss financially. I want so much from you for tilling and seeding that land." I believe that a man in that position would immediately be able to get all the assistance he required and would be able to go ahead with the good work. I would like to see the farmers encouraged in that fashion. It would be far better than to have them renting their land to others because they have not sufficient capital to work it themselves.
If we have sufficient confidence in ourselves to face the situation boldly, we can re-shape our agricultural policy along lines that will be much more beneficial to the country. We must remember that this effort to increase food production cannot easily be achieved. In many parts of the country this winter the people have lived through a period when it was quite impossible to prepare the land for tillage. I am sure the Minister realises the difficulties that had to be faced by the men with a pair of horses and a plough. There were days when it was absolutely impossible to do outside work. It is in such circumstances that the difficulties confronting the farmers become apparent. If we did the things that are obvious and that are within our competence, we could, I believe, shape a new agricultural policy.
Speaking on Senator Johnston's motion recently, I regretted that the Minister for Agriculture had decided to suspend the sittings of the Agricultural Commission. The strange thing is that in other countries which are not as largely agricultural as this they are considering agricultural policies and it is peculiar that the Minister should regard this as the proper time to suspend all advanced thought on that question here. Even to-day the Ulster farmers have a committee sitting to consider their future agricultural policy. I believe we ought to be shaping our agricultural policy. We ought to give some consideration to the problems that will confront us next harvest. Perhaps the Minister will tell me that his fear is we will not get half enough produce from the land. There are many of us who fear that we will not get half enough. I want to give our people sufficient encouragement to induce them to give us the whole loaf, so to speak.
It is very necessary to consider the position that may confront us next harvest, particularly in districts where the grain crop is heavy. We ought to be planning the erection of buildings in which to store the grain. One of the main difficulties of the grain-growing farmer is that he is unable to store his grain. He has to cash it at a time when very few people want it and nobody will take the risk except a speculator. There are people who purchased oats at 9d. and 10d. a stone after last harvest, and to-day they can get 2/- for it. The farmer who grows the oats is losing and the farmer who has to buy it for seed is losing. The individuals who come in between take all the profits. That is the problem that confronted us in the past, and it will confront us again unless during the months between this and the next harvest farmers are enabled, by some system of credit, to make provision for the proper storing of their crops. I suggest that farmers should be placed in a position to erect buildings in order to hold grain crops until such time as the market is able to absorb them.
No matter what we do about tillage, the dairying industry should not be overlooked and there must be no reduction in its output. It is very essential that we keep our dairy stocks at their maximum from the point of view of numbers. It is necessary to do that while at the same time doing our utmost with regard to tillage. We should see to it that we will not in any way deplete our herds. When this madness passes from the world there will be a new situation in which a country like ours can serve usefully if we now keep our stock virile and up to the largest numbers possible. Instead of making spasmodic efforts here and there without any clearly defined views, we should concentrate on a definite agricultural policy. I suggest our method should be to get our farmers into production at a rate which they have not attempted for a great many years by giving them adequate guarantees. They will not make any great effort unless they are given encouragement, and so far the Government has not made any satisfactory move in that direction. It is not anything like adequate to guarantee the produce of 700,000 acres and give no security in respect to the additional 2,000,000 acres of tillage which are so urgently required.
I urge that if we can get this increased tillage, in the cultivation particularly of potatoes, oats and barley, a great quantity of the imports for which in the past we have had to pay with exports, need not come here in future. I think we can teach our farmers that from their own land they can supply their needs to a degree which they had not hitherto attempted, but the difficulties are many. We are to-day living under conditions which are quite abnormal. In the past, the attitude of most people in this country was to purchase food at the lowest possible figure at which they could get it. People in our towns and cities, just like people in towns and cities in England, felt that they were doing their duty to the farmer by buying their food in the cheapest possible market. They did not mind whether it came from the ends of the earth or from the neighbour's field. What was all-important to them was the fact that it should be cheap. I think we shall have to alter that attitude of mind in future. I think that a great many people in this country should have done with the idea of cheap food. We got cheap food in the past, but how did we get it?
The Minister has probably read or heard of a book called The Rape of the Earth. That book describes how cheap food was produced from the land. America has already lost one-third of her soil by these methods and continues to lose it at an increasing rate. The rate of erosion in Africa and Australia is also steadily mounting. Cheap food was produced in South America, in Australia and other countries by exploiting the land, by ploughing and tilling it without any regard to the need for fertilisers, cutting off forests and working the soil until it became so light that it could be blown away, as it has been blown away off millions of acres, leaving nothing but deserts behind. We in this country have been trying to conserve our soils, trying to keep them fertile, and whilst we have been unable to use the mechanised implements that are available to the farmers of these other lands, the cost of production here has been much higher than in these other countries. All this time we had to try to compete against the methods of production which I have described. Even at the moment you can buy grain in South America at £2 per ton, while in the shops here it costs about £15 per ton. I wonder if to-morrow or at the end of the year a blitzkrieg were started by either of the belligerents what would happen to the fruits of this year's harvest?
We have had to compete against the methods of production in other countries, which I have described, because the people in the towns and cities wanted cheap food. My view is that cheap food, the product of the cheap labour of farmers and their labourers, should no longer be expected in this country. Our aim should be to pay the farmer decent wages for his own labour, so that he in turn may be able to pay a decent wage to those whom he employs. If there are people in the towns and cities who are not able to buy dear food, then I say it is our job to face up to that situation, to see what we can do to increase their wages and incomes so as to enable the farmer to get a decent price for the food he produces, a price which will give him a reasonably decent standard of living. I say that this demand for cheap food, if we are going to have any decent standard of living for the people of this country, is something that might as well be forgotten. I do not think it is a wise or sound national policy. It has been disastrous for the farmers, and for rural life generally, and has been responsible for a big reduction in the rural population. If these things are to be averted, if we are to rehabilitate the country, we must make up our minds that we are going to pay a decent price for the food that we get from the land.
I am urging that the Ministry should give our farmers at least the same encouragement that farmers receive elsewhere. Our farmers want just as much encouragement as their fellows living across the Border or in New Zealand. They are just as human, just as normal. There is not very much difference between the Minister, although he comes from the Six Counties, and the man from Cork. The farmer in Armagh is very like the farmer in my own county, and neither of them is unlike the farmer in West Cork. The farmer in West Cork likes to be paid a fair price for his oats and potatoes just like the farmer in the Six Counties. For years past, there has been neither security nor stability in Irish agriculture, and that lack of stability and security has had an enervating effect on our whole life here. That is one of the first problems with which we must grapple. I urge that a declaration of policy from the Ministry will do much to encourage greater production. The difficulties of production at the moment are of a magnitude that is sometimes, one feels, not fully realised.
There was inserted in the newspapers the other day an advertisement appealing for the production of more potatoes, if farmers could not grow more wheat. It seems never to have occurred to those responsible for the advertisement that an acre of potatoes cannot be produced—this has been my experience—at a cost of less than £20 or £25 cash. I suggest that the Minister might make some calculations on that score or get some practical farmer to make them. You are giving a guaranteed price for wheat, but there is no mention of a guaranteed price for potatoes. Let us assume that it costs £25, or even £20, to produce an acre of potatoes. You may get eight tons, ten tons or 12 tons from that acre or you may get only seven. Assuming the yield to be seven tons, and say that the farmer gets as high as £4 per ton, he receives only £28 for the produce of his acre. Just look then at the return which the farmer gets for his labour.
You want an additional area under potatoes but how is that going to be secured? There are many, almost insuperable obstacles. I do not know whether the Minister will recommend the growing of potatoes on lea land without any manure. The Minister knows, as well as I do, that the same quantities of farmyard manure that we had last year are not available for the growing of potatoes this year. On the whole, farmyard manure is used up in the growing of root crops of one kind or another and artificial manures are not going to be available in anything like the quantities that are required. These are some of the difficulties that confront us. If the farmer is not able to secure these huge returns from his tillage that are hoped for next harvest, will the Minister be in a position to say then that the Government had done everything it could do or that there was nothing which it should have done, that it had not done? I put this point to the Minister. Had the Government, in 1939, given a guaranteed minimum price for all crops, would there not have been a very considerably increased area put under tillage in 1940? Every additional acre of lea land put under tillage last year would be stubble to-day and that would be much more suitable for the production of potatoes, even with a small dressing of manure, than lea land is to-day. You had there potentialities and possibilities which could be easily tapped which are not now available. The whole trouble about this policy of farming is that you cannot plough your score and sow all the seed and reap, thresh and eat, all in a day. You have to look 12 or 18 months ahead and even that is not very long for farming.
I am convinced that this is the biggest task, next to the defence of our rights as a nation—and, indeed, in that this problem of producing additional food also is involved, as the problem of our defence involves our capacity to produce additional food, and is secondary to it. Hungry people, or even people half-fed, will not be half as enthusiastic about defending their rights as a nation, as they would be if they are well fed. Those who went through it know that there was no time when the people of this country were as virile or as vigorous as they were in the days of 1917 to 1919. Then there were plenty of stores, the people were comfortably off, and they were not afraid to take the risk. They risked their homes, their land, their money and their lives. Plenty of food is essential for defence, and we should spare nothing to get it. A gentleman said to me that he would be prepared to spend millions of money. To put the thing in a nutshell, I urge that no millions can compensate for the situation which will confront us if we have not enough. The possibility is that we may not have enough if we do not give guarantees of some kind or another. If we give the guarantees, the possibility is that they may never be called upon, that the people themselves will be in such a situation that they would be able to pay a price that will compensate the farmer for his labour. It is all complicated, intricate and involved, but our whole future and our national life depend upon the capacity, the imagination and the courage of the Government to face this situation.
I believe that a bold statement of policy will ensure that our people will face this problem of tillage and increased food production in a way that they have never faced it before. Having faced it, and having solved it, we will have an entirely new outlook about the future, and will reach a stage, in these days of difficulty and emergency, when, by our own efforts and the confidence we have in ourselves and in one another, we will never be so dependent on the lands and toil of people in other countries for food for ourselves in the days to come.
