I move:—
That Seanad Éireann considers that a dynamic farm apprentice Scheme is urgently required.
I wish to thank the Seanad for the opportunity for presenting to the Seanad tonight the results of many years of study and discussion on this particular topic. I hope I shall be able to show that this is one of the vital concerns at the moment in preparing for the Common Market, that is, the ensuring that in future our agriculture will be developed at its maximum potential.
I have to begin by taking some figures. Take the figures given in Economic Statistics as issued by the Central Statistics Office each year. I am quoting from the 1962 figures. We find at page 23, table 7, the record of the number of males engaged in farm work as counted on 1st June each year. We find that in the ten year period covered in the most recent issue, from 1951 to 1961, the total has dropped from 452,000 to 380,000—a drop of 72,000 in ten years. That is an alarming drop—72,000, or 7,000 per annum. Recent figures show that the rate is still substantially the same as that; taking the average from 1954 to 1961 we get an average of 6,000.
We may not be over-alarmed at this figure because we are told the numbers on the land are dropping everywhere, that we are no exception, that there is this flight from the land in progress all over Europe and America. We are going down at the rate of 6,000 per annum. At present the figure is at 380,000 and we are not unduly worried at that figure because we feel we will go down and would it not be all for the better if we levelled out at 300,000 fully occupied and profitably employed workers on the land, than our present position? The alarming fact that I want to establish at the outset is that at present we are drifting, not to a population of 300,000 on the land but to a population of, at most, 150,000—a little over 40 per cent. of our present total.
How can I make that conclusion from the figures? It is very simple. We find that the numbers have been going down at the rate of 6,000 per annum. The number of deaths in the farming community, taking national averages, is somewhere in the region of 9,000 to 9,500—the average for such a group. The statistics show that about 6,000 young boys go to work on the land each year, whether as farmers' sons who stay at home or as young boys going to work on the farms. The statistics show a total of about 20,000 of the 14 to 18 age group, which gives a rough estimate of about 6,000 intake but, when you put an intake of 6,000 against the drop of 6,000 it means that, of the 6,000 who enter, at least 3,000 leave the land before they reach their early twenties and it means that only 3,000 or, at most, 3,500 remain behind to provide the farmers of the future. This has not started last year or the year before. It has been continuous every since the end of the war, 1945, when emigration resumed with full force.
A permanent intake of 3,000 or 3,500—what does that mean? You may estimate the average working life of the young boy entering at 15, allowing for deaths, somewhere under 50 years. If they all survived to 55 from 15 there would be a span of 50 years but it is something less than that due to deaths, probably somewhere in the order of 43 to 45 years. If you find the total then, 3,000 to 3,500, for a working life of 43 to 45 years, you come out with the alarming figure of 150,000. That is the figure we have been aiming at ever since the war as an equilibrium figure, or whatever you wish, but it is there we are aiming at.
I should dearly like to see figures provided by one of the social surveys to give us some idea of the number of young men in the 30 to 35 age group and in the 25 to 30 age group that are on the land today. I am satisfied, from my figures and my study, that you will find there are not more than 3,000 to 3,500 in each of these groups. That is the alarming prospect that is ahead of us unless we take some steps to alter the drift and to get greater numbers of young boys to go on the land and at the same time provide means of keeping those young men on the land.
When I speak on this subject, I speak very much from practical experience, as one who has experience of farming conditions in the Golden Vale and in the Macroom area of County Cork. I have talked with farmers in many other areas. I know the picture is as I am giving it here. We do not need figures to prove it. We know that of the young lads who stay at home for a year or two or who go out to work with farmers for a couple of years until they are ready to go to England, it is conservative to say that 50 per cent. leave the land before they reach the age of 25.
I had a case in point recently on a farm with which I was well acquainted. A young lad of 18, after spending four years on it and at a time when he was earning the equivalent of £7 a week, last August, simply got attracted by the nice dress and the free money that some of the parish boys who came home from London on holidays had to show, hoisted his sails and left. That is the general position. There is where we are drifting.
The seriousness of the drift is that by European standards we have far too few people on the land. Figures show that we have on the average 35 workers per 1,000 acres, on the land. The next to us is France, where there are 50 per 1,000. Denmark has 70 per 1,000 acres and Western Germany has 120 per 1,000 acres. Seeing that we have too few people to get from the land of Ireland the wealth that we know is in that land, it means that, far from intensifying our agriculture in the future, we will be forced by the very scarcity of numbers to become more and more intensive, in other words to degenerate into the beef ranch of Europe.
At the moment we are facing the Common Market. We know a little about some of the problems that are there in agriculture. We know the position that the Common Market would like us to occupy in the Europe of the future; they would like us to be the beef ranch of Europe, for two reasons. First, beef is a commodity that will be in increasingly short supply in Europe. It is something they need. But you need extensive acres to produce it at present prices. Secondly, they do not look with favour on Ireland coming in and using her present acres devoted to dairying efficiently, thereby almost doubling the production or, as many of us as would hope, increasing further the amount of our land devoted to dairying. They do not want that because it will cut across their overall plan for Europe, their plan for trying to provide for the small producers in Europe and keep the markets for them.
Remember, the Common Market is committed to maintaining the family farm, to trying to provide for those on the land a standard of living comparable to that in the cities. To do that in Europe it is recognised that they will, first, have to reduce considerably the numbers employed in agriculture in Europe and, secondly, they will have to intensify their production and keep the intensive lands as the means of raising the income of the small farmers. We cut across both of those and, in four or five years' time, if we are in the position we are in now, with our numbers continuing to go down and down, having taken no steps, or having been unsuccessful in improving our intake both in quality and in numbers of young men to man agriculture for the future, we will have no option but to accept the position of being the beef ranch of Europe.
At first look that position may not appear to be too bad because it is to be expected that beef prices will rise considerably and present total output from agriculture might be maintained even though a considerable portion of land shifted from dairying to beef. Our problem is, however, that there is a very painful transition ahead into the Common Market. I think that is recognised by everyone. We hope that the benefits will outweigh the disadvantages, but the transition will be painful, painful especially for our industry that has been so protected. Consequently, in the change over, the country will be more and more dependent on the agricultural arm to survive the shock. Consequently, we will be looking for more from that arm. The picture I am painting suggests that that arm will not be able to give the necessary assistance unless something is done to help it.
In this setting of Europe we have got to look and think of ourselves in relation to Europe. By European standards we are a nation of ranchers. Our average acreage is 43 to 44 acres. The average acreage in Western Germany is 12. The average in Belgium is 17. The average in Holland is 25. In Denmark it is 38. In Western Europe England alone surpasses us with an acreage of 70. Not alone that but the problem of fragmentation in Europe is far worse than our problem. A man may have 20 acres in Europe. It may be divided up into six or eight lots widely separated from one another. They have a considerable problem there in regard to consolidation. It all adds up to the fact that Europe, in their plan for Europe, would like us to get away as far as possible from dairying and get into beef production. That is what is being forced on us by scarcity of numbers to-day. I speak, knowing many dairy farmers in Limerick, and elsewhere, who just cannot get the skilled help necessary to enable them to carry on their work.
The choice facing us then must be that, despite their advancing years, many of these farmers in their fifties and early sixties will have to struggle on with a seven day a week job, milking the cow, or they will have to take the easy way out and produce beef, produce it scientifically admittedly and, under Common Market conditions, get a reasonable living from it. That is, provided they are able to do that. What alternative will they have? The alternative that faces them at the moment is not an alternative. It is impossible to cope with dairying unless adequate skilled help is provided. When we do get into the Common Market, and when there is that upsurge in prices and so on, that upsurge will mean that a farmer, even though he may change through lack of labour, or because of advancing years, from dairying to beef, will find himself with the same total income. One cannot blame such a man if he takes that way out. If there is not sufficient skilled help available to share the responsibility with him we cannot expect him to take any other course. If skilled labour is available that skilled help will have to be very highly paid. Our only worry about the future is will the differential between dairying and beef be sufficient to pay that skilled help and leave sufficient incentive to induce the farmer to go in for the more intensive and more demanding task?
That is the position as I see it. At the moment we might say that 30 per cent. of our land is devoted to dairying, some 3,500,500 to 4,000,000 acres. If half that shifted to beef production under Common Market conditions one might expect a differential of £20 to £25 per acre gross between the two, dairying and beef. That would involve, in other words, a loss to the nation annually of £40,000,000 to £50,000,000 in output. That is a type of output that requires little or no imports. It is one with a very high labour content. It is something we would dearly love to have in the days ahead. That means that we are faced with the task of increasing considerably the number who enter agriculture.
I have shown that 6,000 a year is not sufficient even if they all stay, because 6,000, on an average life span, would still amount to only 275,000, 100,000 below our present figure. What would be the cost to the Government and the country of finding alternative employment for 100,000 people. If we reduce the present figure of 380,000 by a further 100,000, that is the figure we have to keep in mind at all stages. It means getting more on the land. What is available? We have roughly 30,000 young boys in the 14 years age group each year and of those about 12,000 are from the country. They are either farmers' sons or they live in the country, and a very high proportion might be expected to be attracted to work on the land if sufficient opportunities are provided.
It would be a bit optimistic to hope that two-thirds of them, 8,000, would be attracted and I think we should try and aim at attracting some from the city as well. In modern agriculture there is no reason why city youngsters should not find it as rewarding and as interesting as country youngsters find it. We need at least an input of 10,000 per annum to allow for a wastage of 20 per cent. which would be considerably lower than the present wastage. That would mean an input of about 8,000 to maintain the present numbers or slightly less. We must aim at some figure like that.
The real crisis is that it is not much use planning to achieve that in ten years' time. We need to achieve it before we get into the Common Market, or at least before that Market becomes finalised. It would be one of the strongest possible bargaining points available to us as to why we should get our fair share of the dairy produce market and not be pushed back, as the agricultural planners of the Common Market would like to see us, and going more and more into beef production.
It is not sufficient to attract young men to the land. We have to plan to keep them there. It can be said that at present up to the age of 20 or 21 years a young boy can earn as much on the land—in fact he can earn more —as he can earn in any of the usual run of industrial employment where he has to serve an apprenticeship of some three or four years and build up from there.
At present it is quite common for young boys at the age of 17 or 18 years to have the equivalent of £7 a week on the land, or £4 10 and their keep. There are very few industries here in which a young boy of 18 can command £7 a week. The unfortunate thing about agriculture is that a boy can earn almost as much at 18 years as he can earn at 28 years. That is where the frustration sets in, so we have to provide some incentive for the future. We have to provide him with a ladder that will give him hope, and the only ladder that will appeal to a young lad is the possibility of one day becoming an owner himself. There must be an opportunity of ownership and that is where the whole idea of farm apprenticeship comes in as a means of creating a ladder to ownership.
We must be almost unique in the world to-day in the difficulties that are in the way of a young man without capital trying to get some acres of land to farm for himself. In other countries like Denmark, Holland and America, a young man who has proved himself a good prospect as a future farmer, and has the ability to farm, can get hold of the necessary finances to put him on the land, or he can succeed in renting land. We did so thorough a job in getting rid of the landlords that we have lost what they have in England and other countries as an avenue to ownership for a young man without very much capital or for renting a farm from a landlord or some agency.
The landlord will be primarily interested in whether the young man is a good prospect for getting the most out of the land. If a landlord wants to ‘maximise' his own profits from the land he can do that only by having the most efficient man he can get to work his land and operate it on a rented basis. No one would suggest that we should return to landlordism here but we must fill the gap that has been left.
Over the past ten or 12 years a great deal has been done by farming organisations and other groups. In 1950, the Muintir na Tíre Congress in Sligo devoted a good bit of time to this topic. I had the pleasure of being there and I read one of the papers on the subject. We continued to work at it until 1955. In the meantime Macra na Feirme had set up a committee to work on it. We had got quite a distance and we felt that we had reached the position where we could get a major push forward. Tuairim offered us their good offices and a most refreshing week-end was held in Killiney in 1956. Everyone was enthusiastic about the job and the Minister for Lands, Deputy Childers, was perhaps the most enthusiastic man present.
We all felt that, at least, a breakthrough had been made and that shortly we would have a worthwhile farm apprenticeship scheme on the way, but the years have passed and Deputy Childers' enthusiasm has not availed him in convincing his Cabinet colleagues about the necessity for this scheme. I know many of the members of those associations and I know the intense frustration they felt at the way their efforts were being side-tracked and pigeon-holed. Now the whole scheme has gone. The Government have refused to provide any land for landless men on the plea—perhaps reasonable in many respects—that the congested districts are the first charge on any land available. Still, it is so urgent that a certain amount should be made available. After all, we are making available many thousands of acres each year for sale to foreigners which, if made available for a farm apprenticeship scheme would go some way towards giving the scheme the push forward it needs.
Apparently at the moment the only Government help that can be got for this scheme is that there is some prospect of offering 20 scholarships a year valued at £500 each, a total of £10,000 per annum, to young men who have served an apprenticeship of four years on selected farms, and have other high educational attainments, including a year at an agricultural college and other qualifications. Although that has not been given yet it would be very inadequate and would be regarded as only trifling with the subject. If the picture is as I have painted it, this scheme would make the difference between the country degenerating into a beef ranch for Europe or keeping the present amount of land under the dairy industry or extending it. Then I think a hundred times £10,000, £1,000,000, would still be inadequate for the task ahead. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to treat these figures seriously. There is nobody here who wants to see the farming community reduced to 150,000 people. We may refer to equilibrium and shrug our shoulders at the present yearly decline and take comfort in the fact that this is happening all over the world but the fact remains we are aiming at a target of 150,000 people on the land of Ireland and I submit that if we reach that day there will be very few of the Irish race left.
In regard to apprenticeship, I have asked the Seanad to consider that a dynamic farm apprenticeship scheme is urgently required. I think I have given sufficient evidence of the urgency of this but we want to see what is meant by this scheme that is required, this farm apprenticeship system. It would have many component parts. First, you must get the young lad on the land at 14, 15, or whatever age at which they enter it. Then you would have to provide educational training for them between that age and their early twenties, preferably through a system of night classes. Seeing that we have already in a Bill increased considerably the amount of money available to vocational education it should not be impossible to get vocational education to carry its fair share of the burden of providing this additional agricultural education for our young men.
The task here is an educational and a social one because while it should be possible to design a full-time course that perhaps in two years would give sufficient training to a young lad of 16, our aim should be to spread that over the formative period right up to about 21. That would create a sense of comradeship and a sense of purpose in the young boys as they mature in that period.
As well as that there is the question of apprenticeship on the farms. By and large if the apprenticeship scheme is to be of sufficient scope to meet the problem involved it will be impossible to enforce any real standards of apprenticeship; in other words we shall have to take it that all farmers who want help are suitable in the first instance. The mind boggles at the thought of an inspection system and a grading system that would sort out the farmers into grade A, grade B and grade C masters for the training of apprentices. As well as that, we must make sure that the very idea of apprenticeship is not seized on by farmers as an excuse for reducing the wages of these young lads, because while the farmer will undoubtedly be giving something of value to those boys in the training he gives them, they in turn will be giving the full physical labour output that a young lad of that age is giving today. Consequently the farmer should be proud to assist in the training of a young man rather than seek in that way to profit by reducing the wages paid to the apprentice.
The young lad goes to a technical school and has acquired some sort of training. He may have attended some short courses at an agricultural school. Then the sifting process begins, not in a very severe way, but it will sift to a certain extent. As well as that we have to think of the future. A number of these young men for whom we are planning should be able to farm in their own right. Consequently, they will need money. The farm apprenticeship scheme should be interwoven with a national credit scheme that will attract the savings of these young boys who could save an agreed minimum amount. In that way we achieve a double purpose. There is the national purpose of making more savings available. Nobody will deny that a young boy of 16 or 17 who has £4 or £5 in his pocket besides his keep can save £1 or maybe £2 a week from that. He can do it especially if his nights are provided for in rather inexpensive ways like a couple of nights at the technical school. At the age of 21 a type of natural selection should be achieved so that 50 per cent., 60 per cent. or 70 per cent. of those who entered the scheme would eventually have a training and a sense of responsibility that is very rare today. It certainly is marked by its absence in the circles of labour that is available on the land. When these lads would come to the age of 21 the amount they could earn on the land would be quite high and in fact it would be found that their rates of pay would be more than comparable with rates in industrial occupations especially if they are the means by which a man can intensify and also share in the general increase in prosperity due to the Common Market.
We would have this and finally when you got to the age of 28 or 30, the stage at which farms would be necessary, they would have graduated to being chief helpers on large farms for which they would get a very considerable salary. Then comes the question of land and that could be left largely to the private enterprise of the local credit union. The amount to be advanced to any young man who had passed all the obstacles on the way would depend on the amount he had saved and then perhaps there might be some Government help after that to enable him to buy a place.
The size of the place he should buy is totally immaterial. If at the age of 28, having a certain amount saved and being able to call on a certain amount of credit, a young man finds that he can buy 30 or 40 acres and he is not satisfied to work that—all right, he is a free agent. He can go back and continue working—at that stage I presume that he is the equivalent of a farm manager—for another five years until he has accumulated more capital and more credit to buy a larger place. If he goes on until he is 60, he will be able to buy a couple of hundred acres. In other words we must give maximum flexibility to any such scheme. I am glad in a sense that some of the earlier schemes advocated by Macra were not accepted in their entirety.
