I would impress on the Minister that he should do everything he can to encourage the bloodstock industry, not alone for the employment it gives, but because both the bloodstock industry and hunting are valuable assets to the country. The industry not only brings in a large income from the sales of horses abroad but also in the attraction that it offers to tourists coming here. The name of this country is very high amongst the bloodstock breeders throughout the world and it would be, I think, a very retrograde step if any action were taken by the Minister which would interfere in any way with this valuable industry.
Much has been said in regard to the parish plan. The objects of that plan are to encourage the people of the various parishes to come together, increase the productivity of the land and, according to the pamphlet I have here, to improve the material, cultural and social welfare of the people. With that idea everybody is in agreement. That is a work to which we should bend our energies, but there is a division of opinion as to how the plan should be operated. No activity should remain static. All countries and all peoples are progressive and we must progress with them. We have a system of county committees of agriculture which has been in existence over a long number of years. I am sure that if we are to solve the difficulties that now face the people those responsible for the inauguration and prosecution of the parish plan now in operation in 18 parishes in 15 counties, according to this document, will have to see that the work is carried out.
There is at the moment a certain degree of friction between the officers of the local committees of agriculture and the parish agent and a divergence of opinion in these matters. I wonder what steps are being taken to secure information in regard to increased production within the area in which the parish agent is operating? What steps, if any, is he taking, or is he taking any steps, to measure up that increase in production in the area in which he is working? If that could be worked out in some detail, I feel it would be a good guide. Possibly the officials of the Department may be in a position to supply the answer to that question. The parish agent should know before he starts operations what the volume of production is, so that he can compare that with whatever increased volume may be procured under his guidance.
The appointment of a parish agent does not necesarily connote the successful operation of the parish plan. The men who own the land will have to co-operate with the officials assigned to this work. The farmers will have to be in a position to assimilate the advice given and put it to good purpose. In order to do that, our farmers will have to be capitalised to a considerable extent. It is admitted by most thinking people that our agriculture is very much under-capitalised at the moment. I do not want anyone to take the impression now that I am advocating that money should be made available to the farmers for this, that and the other. That is not exactly what I mean. I mean the land must be capitalised in order to increase the volume of production. Our farmers should be put in a position where they can obtain the necessary plant, erect the necessary storage and provide themselves with all the other requirements which go ultimately towards increased fertility in the land.
All that will have to be done on an organised basis. Possibly, if we had more highly organised farmer organisations, the farmers might be able to do the job for themselves, in the same way as farmers elsewhere have met the problem of under-production in agriculture and successfully solved it by their own banking system. It might be unfair to ask the State to intervene or to give very considerable assistance. Nevertheless, if we are to attain the objective adumbrated in the parish plan, we shall have to ensure that in those areas which we represent, every encouragement will be given to our farmers to co-operate fully and to avail to the greatest possible extent of the knowledge and facilities placed at their disposal to do the job they have been asked to do and to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.
I think the Minister should seriously consider this lack of capital in agriculture at the present time. I cannot offer any rough-and-ready solution to the problem. I wish I could. If I could, I would make a contribution along those lines here. We all know that if you put money on the market to allow people to purchase something, they straight away purchase in competition with one another. That is not what is needed. What is needed is capital to increase production and to get from every acre of land the further unit so essential at the moment in order to balance our economy.
The parish plan will, of course, be related to all the available advisory services, to the research service and to the proposed institute of agriculture. As a Party, we have expressed our opinion on that institute of agriculture and in that opinion I fully concur. I am one of those who are all in favour of increased educational facilities for farmers and for the rural communities in general, even if they are not farmers because they can all contribute in their own way to the national wellbeing. I believe that the differences which may exist at the moment in relation to this institute of agriculture will, in time, be solved as have other differences in the past. It is only natural that innovations should give rise to controversy. When the institute is established, we will then be in a position to see exactly how it works and any alterations necessary can then be made.
I am in favour of research. I think the Minister and his Department should do everything to enable research to be carried out here. It is true that in recent years veterinary surgeons have been doing a tremendous job of work and we have now reached the happy position in which we need have no great fear of any serious inroads by disease into our cattle population. Calf mortality has been practically wiped out. That will add considerably to the number of cattle. Naturally such diseases as foot and mouth and anthrax have to be dealt with in a different way. The possibility is that they may create a certain amount of difficulty in the future, but they can be dealt with.
I come then to the county committees of agriculture. I do not think it would be fair to by-pass the committees. They have done very useful work over the years with the limited facilities at their disposal. There may have been occasions when members of these committees indulged in activities that did not come quite within the province of such committees. These things happen everywhere and it is nothing new in Irish life to have debates on one subject or another at such committees. All in all, these committees have done very useful work. There might perhaps be a case made for a change in the method of election, but I do not want to go into that matter now. I know I am not entitled to advocate legislation on the Estimate and apparently such a change would necessitate legislation. I shall leave it at that.
Let us deal now with this question of milk and the price of milk. The price of milk was, apparently, fixed in 1947 by the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Smith, and it has not changed since. I am subject to correction on that. It was in 1951. It is true that the cost of production to farmers has increased since then, and there are people engaged in the business, no matter what their political affiliations are, complaining that it is not a paying proposition at the moment. I have no method of knowing whether it is or not, but I meet these people in business. We will have to wait until we hear the report of the Milk Costings Commission, whenever we are going to get it. I think this matter should be considered, and considered now, so that the people engaged in this business will know exactly what to expect in the matter of prices over the coming year and whether or not they are going to get an increase or a reduction in the price of milk.
So far as milk production is concerned in the Dublin sales area, we know that, by the fixation of prices, there is a floor put into the market for the people engaged in that business. They have not to depend on the fluctuation of prices in a foreign market for the sale of their milk. These men are engaged, most of them, in the production of milk on small farms and they are concerned with the supply, on a contract basis, to the firms that purchase the milk. They buy their cows and feed them and they do not, in many cases, milk them a second year. The cows are sold off these farms either as fat cows or half-fat cows. They go to the beef market, anyway.
There is, in that, a wastage from the cow population that could be arrested to some considerable extent. Many of those cows are first class cows, with high milk yields, and are capable of carrying calves for many years. Owing to the circumstances in which these producers of milk find themselves in regard to the area of land they own, they cannot operate on any other class of policy and they are bound by contract to supply milk at all times of the year.
These cows are sold for whatever they will fetch in the open market. Any of them that are put in calf, their calves are sold at birth, so that there is no question of these farmers making use of the services provided to increase their herds from calves reared on their own farms from high milk yield cows.
It has been stated here by Deputy Rooney that farmers are bedevilled by sharp fluctuations in prices. I do not know whether Deputy Rooney, in making that statement, was bearing in mind the sharp fluctuations inprice dealt out to the farmers for their wheat by the present Minister for Agriculture when he slashed the price by 12/6 a barrel. Depute Rooney sought to convey also that there was a steady increase in prices for farmers from the date the present Minister became Minister for Agriculture in the first Coalition. There was no increase in the price of wheat fixed by Deputy Smith, when Minister for Agriculture in 1947, until the Fianna Fáil Government increased the price by 5/- a barrel in July, 1951. That is a fact shown by the record and Deputies like Deputy Rooney ought to think twice before they make statements such as he made in that regard.
It is true that farmers want to have a long-term policy in regard to prices, but the only place in which the Government in this country can give a long-term price for farmers' produce is at home in Ireland. It has been the policy of this Party, since 1932, to do that in so far as we possibly could. It is the policy of this Party, now, to have the prices of all our cereals, including oats, related to the prices obtainable for the animals to which they are fed.
In so far as the tinned meat and dead meat trade is concerned, some of the Deputies opposite do not seem to think much of that business as a trade. I feel that it has a useful function in this country. It was unfortunate that the business commenced operations here at a time of boom when meat was making fabulous prices on the American market for a short time. Many people rushed in to establish factories and take advantage of the good times that were going. Many of those people have learned that that business was not as lucrative as they hoped it would be and they are feeling the pinch of the times now, in loss of business and loss of capital.
I feel it would be unsound to allow businesses such as these to go out of existence. I know it is difficult for a Government to deal with an individual business and to do anything for it when it is not paying. In normal times, when meat is not as dear as it has been over recent years, there could be a useful business developed from our tinned meat factories or plants in this country.
The trouble here is that, when it comes to certain times in the year, we are not in a position to maintain the surplus live stock, and in the fall of the year when the grass season ends, it is normal for our people to have heavy selling of live stock. In the year that has gone, that did not happen because the animals were not needed on the far side, and we were left with a carryover. I think there is an opening for the development of this dead meat trade, and as far as tinned meat is concerned, it would provide a means of holding over supplies from the glut period to a time when meat would be needed. Along with that, it would be a method of giving useful employment within the country. It has always been the aim of nationally-minded people to do everything possible to process all goods as far as possible before they left the country. I think some action should be taken by the Government to implement that policy. I cannot advocate any particular action. I know it is a difficult matter and something that needs to be carefully investigated and considered. I am just making a plea, for what it is worth, that this matter be looked into.
In County Meath, there are several items of agricultural production that merit attention. While constituting only a small part of the national output, to the individuals concerned they may mean a lot. Reference was made to this, I think, by Deputy Tully when he spoke on the Estimate and it was also referred to by Deputy Giles and others. That item of production is fruit, soft fruit, hard fruit, apples, damsons and all the rest of the fruit that is produced within the country. The Minister seems satisfied—as the previous Minister seemed satisfied— that everything necessary has been done when the necessary restrictive Orders have been made to prevent the importation of fruit juices or fruit pulp, but something more needs to be done.
I know the Minister can readily answer by saying: "Why do not these people do what was done in Dungarvan?" In Dungarvan, they set up a co-operative processing plant and the Minister quite properly makes a contribution from the State to that undertaking, and it is provided for in this Estimate to the extent of some thousands of the pounds. If our fruit-growers in County Meath could be induced to go into that line of business, so much the better; but it is very difficult to get them to do this, because such a small amount of fruit is grown per head and the amount of land they have for this business is small. It is very unfortunate to find, at times of glut, or when there is an increased volume of production from these small holdings, due to hard work by a hardworking class of people, that they have the goods but cannot get the prices. If the officials of the Department were to see some of these people and endeavour to get them to organise themselves into a co-operative society to deal with their own produce, it would be a very good thing.
It appears to me that we have now reached the stage when speakers from this Party who call upon farmers to produce more will not be charged by anybody with making statements leading on the farmers and forcing the farmers to work harder to produce food for people who do nothing except draw public assistance. We want to get away from that attitude of mind entirely and create among our people a different attitude in regard to this question of farm production. We want to get away from the idea that has been impregnated into the minds of the people in certain parts of the country, where the small farmers sell their produce to the larger farmers, that the larger farmers are waxing fat and battening on them. We should aim to get it into the minds of those people who live off the land—whether in the large cities or the towns in good or middling occupations—that it is to our lasting welfare that the farmers who produce the food should be paid above the cost of production and that they should get a fair and honest price for it.
The determination of that price is the problem that is hard to solve. I admit that, but if we could get that attitude of mind of which I speak, it would be possible, I think, within the next three or four years to secure from our land the increased production necessary for us as a nation to survive, and which would bring to our own people the benefits that hard work and industry bring to any people.