I wish formally to second the motion on the Order Paper in the names of Senator Baxter and in my own. When it was put on the Order Paper, it was not appreciated by us that the Minister was going to get what he almost described as a battering from all sections of the community in public since he was appointed. So far as the industry for which I am speaking to-day is concerned, the problem is largely the result of the circumstances which brought about in one way the Minister's appointment and which have made the matter so urgent. As the House is aware, a tribunal was set up on the 1st March, 1945, to inquire into the milk supply for the City of Dublin.
The farmer producers who have been supplying the City of Dublin with milk have been hoping, ever since that tribunal sat, to see what action the Government proposed to take on its report, and how they were going to be able to accommodate themselves to whatever proposals were put forward. But the position is that the report is not available yet. I want to direct the attention of the House for a few moments to the position of those farmer-producers supplying the City of Dublin. Senator Baxter dealt with this matter from the point of view of the creamery areas. I do not propose to touch on that because frankly I do not know enough about it to talk on it. I do want to put before the House the position in the five-county area from which the City of Dublin gets its supplies. These counties are Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, and small parts of North Wexford and North Carlow. The position in these counties is different from that in the creamery areas where milk is to such a large extent produced on a natural basis on grass feeding. In the five-county area milk production must be not according to nature but to an all-the-year-round schedule. It is essential to that area that the farmer-producer will make his contract to supply a daily gallonage over the whole year. Under its terms he must supply that gallonage during the winter— during the very difficult months of January and February—just as in the easy month of May. In respect of that contract, the only thing he is allowed is to increase his sales during the easy months of the late spring and early summer by 20 per cent. The figure varies in the case of different wholesalers, but, by and large, it is in or about 20 per cent.
It must, therefore, be appreciated that the farmer-producer in the five-county area has, in addition to meeting the ordinary problems that arise in the creamery areas, to contend with the further difficulty of producing milk according to plan. He must make arrangements to ensure that he will be able to do so at a time when, according to nature's plan, it is very difficult to supply milk.
Obviously, if his cows were to calve in the spring he would have an ample supply of milk. There would then be an abundant supply of grass for their feeding, but that is not the question in the case of the man supplying milk to this city. He has to work to a fixed time-table and in doing so he is faced with the losses that will arise if his cows do not calve exactly at the time planned in the time-table. If that happens then he will not be able to keep up his supply of milk. Therefore, in his costings he has to take this into account as well as the ravages caused to his dairy herd by mastitis and abortion. These matters were dealt with at great length in the evidence given before the Milk Tribunal which was set up on the 1st March, 1945. These farmer-producers were hoping for some research in regard to these diseases from the report of the tribunal. The members of the tribunal, by the questions they put to the witnesses, showed that they appreciated that a long-term policy must be to increase production and to decrease expenses, and that one of the ways of decreasing the expenses of these farmer-producers is to carry out research by virtue of which the losses they are suffering in their dairy herds, due to abortion and mastitis as well as by sterility—by the cows not calving according to plan or missing— will be eliminated.
Those farmers supplying Dublin were hoping that there would be research into all these matters. That would mean a considerable saving to them by reason of the fact that greater profits would result from production. As Senator Baxter has pointed out, in the case of milk production, as in the case of any form of production whether it be agricultural or industrial, the producer must get a profit that will be over and above his expenses. If his expenses are going to be higher than his receipts then, obviously, he cannot remain in his particular line of business. A long-term policy, in the case of milk production, must ensure that the receipts will be greater than the expenses—I mean the volume of receipts. I am not thinking at the moment merely of the question of price. What I am thinking of is that whatever the price is there will be an increased volume and a greater gap between expenses and receipts.
There is no use in having a long-term policy in respect of all that if, by the time it comes to be operated, we are going to have no farmers interested in milk production, if there is going to be no milk production in the interim, and if there is going to be no stock with which to carry out that long-term policy. It cannot be a case of the old saying, "Live horse and you will get grass".
In order to carry out a long-term policy you must have sufficient stock available and a sufficient number of farmers interested in it to take advantage of increased yields resulting from an improvement in breeding, or to take advantage of any saving that there may be in expenses as a result of research into the causes of abortion and mastitis. Therefore, it is necessary to consider not merely a long-term policy but also a short-term policy. We are not concerned at the moment in respect of a long-term policy so far as this motion is concerned. We are concerned with a short-term policy pending the bringing forward of a long-term policy for the saving of expenses and an increase in the volume of output.
In respect of the five-county area, I know well that the Minister can say that there has not been a drop in the gallonage of milk produced. He may have in his possession the figures for 1946, but they are not yet in the possession of the public. Therefore, the last figure that I can give for the gallonage for the Dublin city area is some 40,000 gallons of milk per day. That quantity of milk is produced by the producers in that area, which as I have said, also includes parts of North Wexford and North Carlow. That figure represents a slight increase on what was produced in 1937 and 1938. But there is one very striking fact in that increase, that the gallonage in 1937 was produced by 1,100 registered producers, while the same gallonage—speaking in round figures—is now produced by 1,900 producers. Therefore, it can easily be seen that the average being sent in per producer has dropped to a very alarming extent. What 1,100 people sent into Dublin before, now requires 1,900 producers.
That, as the Minister will appreciate, means that there has been an entire change in the structure of the milk production system for Dublin. The drop in that respect per producer means that the production coming in here now is to a greater extent the production of the small man, and for a city such as Dublin to depend to such an alarming extent on the production of the small man is a dangerous thing, because the small man can decide to go out of milk production and change to some other form of production almost overnight, but the larger producer cannot for the reason that in his case it is something which will be very much more expensive and for which it will require very much more time to make his plans for the change. Therefore, when one depends, to the extent to which one now depends, on the small producer, one is in this position, that one is hanging on a thread, so to speak, which might change much more quickly and much more easily than was the case in 1937 or thereabouts.
The Minister, very properly, in one of his published statements—I had not the advantage of reading it in the Irish Press, but I read it in the Irish Independent where it was given somewhat fully—suggested that he must be in a position to see that the demand being made by producers was a fair demand and that the producers were not looking for a price which was exorbitant or extravagant. I want to put on the records of the House some attempt— and I use the word “attempt” very deliberately—at arriving at the cost of producing milk at present for the City of Dublin. I use the word “attempt”, because I am not in any way trying to suggest that the figures I give are infallible. They are bound to be an estimate because one cannot get exact figures in regard to this matter. I give them as an estimate for what they are worth and I ask the Minister to consider them. If he is in a position, as I am sure he will be at some time, to show that my figures are wrong in any respect, I shall be only too glad to look at his corrections and consider whether I can floor him as he will try to show me that my figures are wrong.
In making out figures for costs, we must remember that there are certain items which will be static, no matter what may be the position. We must realise that, no matter whether a cow is good or bad, she will be fed in the summer months on a particular area of grass. I suggest to the Minister that, in the five-county area of which I speak, a fair average of grazing in the summer per cow would be an Irish acre and a half, or just under 2½ statute acres. I suggest, further, that a reasonable price for that land in these days would be £25 to £30 an acre. One has to take into account in that respect the interest on the capital invested in the land and must also take into account the annuities payable to the Land Commission as well as the rates payable in respect of the 2½ acres. To be perfectly fair, we must allow, in respect of the rates, the agricultural abatement given in respect of the men employed per farm, taking into account that, on a dairy farm such as I want to give an example of, the abatement will be granted at the full rate because the employment ratio will be high.
I suggest that, to cover interest on the capital value of the land employed, the annuity payable and the rates payable, taking interest at 4 per cent.— though I think it would be fair enough to take it at the 5 per cent. which the banks charge on an overdraft at present, but, as I do not want to make any extravagant case, I take it at 4 per cent.—a fair amount would be £4 17s. 6d. per year. It is necessary to make provision for the labour involved in the upkeep of fences, cleaning of drains, repair of gates from time to time, work which has to be done in the summer under the Noxious Weeds Act and so forth, and I think a figure of 10/- per year is not an unreasonable amount to allow on that acreage.
The next question which must be considered is the fertility of the land. There would be a case to suggest that there should be an addition made with regard to the necessity to go to the bag-man to make up the deficiency of calcium and phosphate, because it is admitted that dairying is one of the forms of farming which extracts the most fertility from the land. I do not, however, want to make an extravagant case, and I am going to offset, not merely the value of the straw used for bedding but any expenditure there may be on artificial manures, by the value of the natural manures which will come out of the feeding house from this imaginary cow we are keeping. Some people suggested that I am wrong in not making an allowance, but I do not propose to take anything for it.
The next big problem is labour. As Senator Baxter said, dairying is an exacting taskmaster. It means that one must get up early in the morning and work late at night. It means particularly, so far as any large dairy farm is concerned, that the labour paid for the work must be paid a rate of wages higher than the ordinary agricultural labour rate in the particular area, because, unless it is paid that rate, the dairyman will not be able to keep his employees in view of the unpleasant calls made on the men's time in the form of early hours, Sunday work and so forth. I made some inquiries in North Kildare, and, so far as I can find out, the present wage paid by large dairy farmers in that area to their men, taking into account Sunday work and so forth, is not less than £3 per week.
The Minister, I think, will agree with me that it is fair to say that, in the matter of winter production, if a man milks and looks after ten cows he is doing a pretty good day's work. It is a good day's work or a good week's work to milk ten cows and as well as milking them feed them, bed them and clean out. In summer, of course, there is not the same amount of work to be done because they will be out on grass and it would be mainly only a question of milking in the morning and evening with a certain amount of additional work. The man will be considerably freer than in the winter to help in other work on the farm. Therefore in respect of the summer months I am suggesting that one man can look after 20 cows and taking the wage average at £3 it means that the cost per cow for labour works out at £12 3s. 0d. for the year.
But to carry on dairying, as the Minister will agree, buildings are very necessary. You must have a cowshed, and remember that in this five-county area with which I am dealing our milk must be produced in accordance with the provisions of what is shortly known as the Clean Milk Act of 1936. Dairying must be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Act and under the supervision of the appropriate officer of the local authority. I happen to know one particular shed erected about three years ago to accommodate 50 cows and its cost was £1,000. In addition to the shed for milking you must also consider the cost that is going to be involved in hay storage. I asked another man who has 50 cows in his herd and he told me that he calculated that his six-bay shed just carried the amount of hay that he needed to get his 50 cows through the winter and that in pre-war days—I am not certain whether it was before the war or just at the beginning of the war —the shed cost him £400 to erect.
In addition to these buildings there must be a dairy, a feeding shed, a shed to store the roots as well as grain lofts to carry the oats and mixed grains required for feed. These buildings have got to be repaired, kept clean and maintained. They are under the inspection of the local authority. Furthermore, utensils must be maintained and kept clean. Taking these figures which I got from people in Kildare and calculating again on a 4 per cent. basis the cost works out at about £3 10s. 0d. per cow.
Again, the milk has got to be brought from the sheds on the farm to the roadside stand where it is picked up by the wholesaler and we must provide for the fees payable for the services of a bull or if the man keeps his own bull, for the cost involved. We must provide, too, for fuel for the sterilisation of implements and utensils and for lighting particularly during the winter months when milking is done in the early hours of darkness and something must be provided for medicines for cows when they are sick and for veterinary expenses. So far as I can estimate, the cost of these items does not fall far short of an average of £2 5s. 0d. per cow.
Now, we come to a question which is going to be extremely difficult to estimate. It is the cost of the feeding ration. It is pretty well accepted, and certainly accepted by one of the learned professors who signed one of the reports of the Committee on PostWar Agricultural Policy set up by the Government, that so far as maintenance is concerned in the winter months apart from production of milk, the average ration you have to feed is 14 lbs. of hay per day and 28 lbs. of roots or, alternatively, one and a half stone of hay alone. For the calculations I have made, I have worked on the basis of 14 lbs. of hay per day and 28 lbs. of roots for the winter months. There are, approximately, 200 days when there will be no grass feeding available but not every cow is going to be producing milk during the whole of these 200 days. But every cow will have to be maintained. Therefore so far as rations are concerned, the cow has got to be maintained throughout the whole winter period. The Minister indicated in an interjection in Senator Baxter's speech that he must consider the question of expenses, and feeding is an expense, in relation to earlier years. I want to suggest that for the moment we should take it not at a time like the present but, say, last year when hay was being produced. I could make a tremendous case on the present value of feeding stuffs, but as I said before I do not want to make an extravagant case. But even on earlier prices I am convinced that there is a case with such justice that the terms of the motion must be met. How it is going to be met is a question that I will come to before I conclude.
So far as fodder is concerned we can take it at the prime cost of production on the farm itself and that would be a very small figure. But if we take it that way we must bear in mind that we must also take into account the interest value of the land necessary to produce these rations. One must take into account also, if we take purely the prime cost of production, rent and rates on the land. The prime cost would be the cheapest way but allowances will have to be made for these items and at the other end of the scale we must take into account the cost at which fodder would have to be bought, in other words, its market price. That would be a much greater price and I do not think it would be fair from the Minister's point of view to ask that he should take the full market value of the fodder into account. But let us bear in mind that owing to the fact that wheat must be produced in accordance with compulsory tillage regulations, the dairy farmer is being forced more and more to go out and buy fodder at market prices. I tried, so far as possible, to hit a mean figure between the two extremes of which I have spoken. I took it that, under the compulsory tillage Order, though there would be a great deal of new meadow, there would be some old meadow. I took the average price for hay, so far as possible, from the local figures available last summer in Kildare. I calculated the cost at 6/- per cwt. delivered in the hay barn and the cost of roots at 2/- per cwt. delivered in the root store. I may as well be quite frank and say that I was told that the figures I had taken were too low. On these figures, it worked out that to keep this cow was going to cost £7 10s. 0d. for hay and £3 2s. 0d. for roots. That is the maintenance cost of a cow. We shall have to consider what it will cost to feed the cow to produce milk. I want to take into consideration a cow which has a higher average than that for the whole country which is, I think, about 350 gallons. Senator Baxter will correct me if I am wrong in that figure.
I take a cow with a yield of about 400 gallons. I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that she is worth between £30 and £35. The interest figure on that would be about 30/-. We must consider the loss there will be when that cow drops out of the dairy herd and has to be replaced. It seems to be fairly accepted that, even without allowing for the ravages of disease, a dairy farmer will be lucky if he succeeds in keeping that cow through some three and a half lactation periods. When she does drop out of the dairy herd, she may be fattened up and sold to the butcher. That will cost money. Or she may be fit only for canning. So far as I could ascertain, it would seem to be generally accepted amongst farmers from whom I made inquiries that the loss of this 400-gallon cow through dropping out of the herd for three and a half lactation periods would average yearly about £6. In addition to the maintenance which the cow requires during the whole year, we must consider the additional food which must be given to produce the 400 gallons of milk. The same person to whom I referred earlier has suggested that, to produce the first gallon of milk, over and above her complete maintenance 35 lbs. of roots would be desirable and, to produce each additional gallon after the first gallon, about 4 lbs. of mixed grain would be a fair average. That would be made up of cotton seed meal, dairy nuts, oats, barley and so forth. These were the figures given to me and on these figures we have to calculate the cost. She has not to be fed to give production for the full 200 days' winterage. Some cows will have to be so fed but there will be another cow in respect of that period producing most of her milk during the grass period. Having regard to the fact that it is more difficult to get a cow to produce a quantity of milk during the winter and having regard to the shortage that will operate at that time, it is suggested that it would be fair to take it that she will have to be fed 150 days out of 200 days to give winter milk. Calculating roots on the same basis as I calculated them before, it will cost about £4 15s. 0d. to get the first gallon of milk. We have then got the mixed grains. Dairy nuts cost 25/- a cwt., and cotton seed meal is about the same price. In working out the figures, I took the price of oats at 15/-, which everybody will agree is well below anything that could be described as extravagant. The cost, therefore, works out at £4 17s. 6d. That means that, for that cow to give 400 gallons of milk, the gross expenses will be £50 9s. 0d. Off that, you have to allow for the value of the calf—say £2. That means that the cow involves a net cost of £48 odd.
The amounts paid by wholesalers for milk are fixed by the Minister. The price is 1/3 for the months of May and June, 1/6 for July, August, and September, and 2/- for the remaining seven winter months. These are the prices payable at the wholesaler's store or shop in the City of Dublin. The milk supply would come on an average a distance of about 25 miles, and there would have to be the fixed deductions for transport. The cost in respect of this 400-gallon cow would be £48 and she would bring into that farmer a net sum of £32 10s. That is without taking into consideration any profit for the farmer or any managerial profit. The clerk going into the most minor post in the Civil Service is paid £3 a week. In these figures, there is no allowance for profit to the farmer for his managerial job in looking after his dairy herd. There is no charge for the expenses of the farmer in going round the various fairs so as to buy in cows, which has to be done when his cows fall out of line in order to keep his contracts.
The Minister will, no doubt, tell me that a 400-gallon cow is not economic. It is not a very difficult arithmetical job to work out her progress further. For each extra 100 gallons that the cow produces, the farmer will get £8 2s. 6d. gross. If a 400-gallon cow is to go up to 500 gallons, she will have to be fed another 400 lb. of mixed grain if it was all winter feeding, but that has got to be averaged as I explained before over the partly-winter period and partly-grass period. By averaging these in the way I suggested before, it is going to work out that it will cost about £3 and it means it is going to bring an additional profit of £5 for an extra 100 gallons of milk. But of that profit of £5 remember that as the cow goes up in production she becomes more valuable. It is proper, therefore, to take a larger figure for interest in her value and she comes very much more susceptible to disease by pushing her up to 600 gallons. Again you have got another £8 2s. 6d. gross increase on the receipts, but in respect of that gross increase, you are again going to have about another £3 for mixed grains, and you are going to have when you get your 600 gallons yield a cow that all the evidence given before the tribunal showed, was very much more susceptible to disease than the lower-yield cow.
There was very considerable evidence given to that tribunal that though farmers might be able to get their dairy herds in one year up to 600 gallons it was their universal experience that it was utterly impossible to keep to that level. Because when they did get their yield up to that, the result of the tuning-up was always that something happened to them the following year. I think I can remember one man who said he had got an average of 600 gallons for his herd, for one year, but the result was that he had pushed his cows too far and in the next year they dropped to 360 gallons as a result of disease and going wrong.
Those figures, the House will agree, show that milk production at present is not going to be extremely profitable as a transaction. In fact, they show that there is a substantial loss in going in for it in any one way and that is one of the reasons why the bigger people engaged in this industry have gone out of it.
The Minister is aware, I am sure, that in Kildare there were, two years ago, three main large herds. It would be invidious for me to mention names in the House but I am quite certain that the Minister from the figures I will give, will identify them. There was one herd which had 150 cows, and that is out of business now for some time past because the owner kept costings and found it was not profitable. There was another herd—the next biggest— which had 130 cows and that herd was all sold up last week. There was a third herd of 120 cows and so far as I can remember these were the only three herds over 100 cows in Kildare. The third man told me when I met him yesterday that unless the situation is changed he is going to get out after this summer's grass; that he cannot afford to go on losing money as he is at present.
Only yesterday I came across the case of another man near Maynooth who used to own—as long as I have known him—60 cows. And he told me yesterday that he had now only five cows because he found he could not manage it. That is the serious position with which we are faced at present. It is going to be a question of whether there is going to be no milk for the City of Dublin or whether there is going to be an adequate supply of milk. I am convinced unless something is done and done quickly in regard to this short-term crisis that we are not going to have the supply of milk we will want next year.
I am not the only person worrying about the supply of milk. I have been told on very good authority by a man who was told by the wholesaler concerned that that particular wholesaler realising that there was the danger of a shortage had applied to the Government for permission to import dried milk into this agricultural country. That was because he saw the red light of the danger of what is going to happen, that we are not going to have sufficient milk for the city unless the industry is put just the same as any other industry on a profit-making basis.
We have the situation here where costs are perhaps in some way comparable with Northern Ireland. We have the situation here where the winter price for city milk is 2/- a gallon, and we have the situation in Northern Ireland where the winter price for city milk is 3/4 a gallon.
