Since I reported progress on Thursday last, the Fianna Fáil shout-in, the dogfight, has taken place. The bulls are out of the ring for the time being. They are girding their loins, in all propability, for further combat——
Committee on Finance. - Vote 37: Agriculture (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1971, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, including certain services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain subsidies and sundry grants-in-aid.
(Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.)
The Deputy must have been practising that very well.
Although the meeting which took place at the weekend is the most important meeting of the year for the Fianna Fáil Party—the meeting at which there should be decided policy-making for the future of the country—not a word about agricultural planning emanated from that meeting. Despite all the talk and all the name-calling that took place, the people of this country are still without any grand design or programme in regard to agriculture. They were given no guidelines for the future.
I suppose there would be no harm in saying that political credibility has reached a new low. Even if the Government were to agree on some sort of programme at this late hour, it would be very difficult for them to put this across to the people of the country. Recently we have had unmitigated treachery and perjury in high places.
The Deputy should keep to the discussion on agriculture.
On a point of order, since there is sitting at present an all-party committee—the Committee of Public Accounts—and since the Deputy made allegations here which he has since withdrawn, what is he talking about now? Surely this is the place where standards should be set.
I am not talking about any person in this House. I withdrew what I said but what I am saying is that it is very difficult to get the people of this country to believe anything from anybody in high places. Again, I repeat that I am not referring personally to anybody who is in this House at the present time.
In so far as Fianna Fáil policy in relation to agriculture is concerned, again, this is a matter of political expediency. They seem to be standing idly by—one might say they can be compared to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. It is no harm to say that, as far as we on this side of the house are concerned, we believe in co-operation, co-ordination and dialogue. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in the Dáil last week had brought to his notice the fact that there is a row—let it be described as a row or a war— going on between our principal producers in this country and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. The Minister's own delegates at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis raised a similar question. They pointed out to the Minister that this war is taking place, but the Minister has denied there is any disagreement between himself and the farmers. Words must have lost their meaning if the Minister cannot now make up his mind and realise that there is this war taking place at the present time. There is one principle which is a bar to all information and proof against all argument: that is, to close your eyes to what is taking place around you.
The time has come for the Government to face up to their responsibilities. This war has gone on far too long. I do not want to apportion the blame. It is a well-known fact that the gap between what the farmers are receiving and what the urban dwellers are receiving has now reached a new peak. The Minister said at the Ard Fheis that he did not want to see this gap widening. Those are his words, according to the Irish Times. He can deny them if he likes. Surely the time has come when he should say to the people that, since the farmers are our principal producers and since the future of the country depends on them, they should be given a better deal. The Minister must realise that farmers represent 32 per cent of the people. Last year they got only 16.1 per cent of the national income, and yet directly or indirectly they are responsible for 65 per cent to 70 per cent of our total exports. Surely the Minister will realise that they are getting only half today of what they are entitled to.
The time has come for both the Minister and the Taoiseach to wipe the slate clean. Remember the sooner the impasse is ended, the better for each and every one of us in this country. It is time to point out to the Minister that he will not succeed, as some of his predecessors have tried to succeed, by ruthless statements which were made and deliberate efforts to start class warfare between the urban and rural population and also to divide the small farmers from the big farmers. The farmers are now determined to march forward, to demand their slice of the cake and get it. Out of the chaos of conflicting ideas and theories, of which the farmers have been for far too long the victims, at last emerges a reasonably unified voice demanding attention.
It is right to point out to the Minister that there is a limit to the endurance of any section of the people and that limit has been reached at the present time by the farmers of this country. They are not prepared to be kicked about like a political football any longer. They are not prepared to remain second-class citizens in this State any longer. They have a very valuable part to play in the economy of this country to produce a larger national cake. They can do that because they have done it in the past. If the call goes out to them again the farmers will respond to it because they have been in the front line trenches in many wars in this country, national, social and economic. When the call went out in the last war they and their labourers answered that call and did a good day's work for this country. The Minister should now hold out the hand of friendship, but there is very little use holding out an olive branch in one hand and a cudgel or a mallet in the other hand. That is what has happened too often in the past as far as the farmers are concerned. The Government should realise that they will not spilt the farmers or walk on them this time. Before this tragic affair which is taking place at the present time, escalates, the Government should take action. They are elected by the people to govern and not to sit idly by. They seem to enjoy wars with different sections of the community, let it be the ESB workers, the teachers or the bank officials. When the bank strike was on recently the Government stood idly by for seven or eight months. Many farmers are suffering severely at the present time due to the fact that the Government stood idly by then. The teachers were going on strike recently.
That has nothing to do with the debate on the Agriculture Estimate.
We are entitled to say in passing that the Government again stood idly by. Were it not for the fact that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called those people together we would have chaos today amongst the children of this country. Let the Government not stand idly by as far as this disagreement between the farmers of the country and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is concerned. The Government should realise that they can build a firm foundation on co-operation, discussion/consultation and in regard to all those problems, finding out what the Government and the farmers have in common instead of the bickering, fighting and wrangling which we have at present.
The farmers are disillusioned with the present situation. The Minister is aggravating that situation by claiming here in this House and at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis last week that there is no difference or no war between himself and the farmers. Respectable farmers were jailed here a few years ago. I said last week that we had then selective justice in this country. There are times and circumstances in which it is respectable to go to jail and there are circumstances in which it definitely is not. I hope the Minister will use his good offices to do something about this disagreement. He is a farmer himself and he should know the problems concerning the farmers.
We are also entitled to ask where is our preparation at present for entry into the EEC? What are the Government doing to prepare our farmers for entry into the EEC, which many people believe will be not alone to the benefit of the farming community but to the benefit of the country as a whole? We are entitled to ask what the alternative is if we do not go into the EEC. The Minister is quite well aware that the Conservative Government in Britain claimed, prior to the general election, that they would not be bound by the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain. It is also the policy of the Conservative Government in Britain to allow food prices to rise. The Home Secretary in the former Labour Government was in Ireland recently and, when he was questioned about the Common Market, his reply was: "Your real problem will be if Britain does not get into the Common Market. Then you will certainly have a problem." The policy of the Conservative Government is to allow food prices to rise and to put a tariff on food coming in from other countries. We are large exporters of food. What does the Minister propose to do? Has he done anything so far? Many farmers and farming organisations are perturbed at the statements of the Conservative Government. There may be an alarming future for them. The Government should now be taking steps to prepare our farmers either for entry into the EEC or for the unfortunate alternative.
The greatest danger at the moment is the high-priced economy that has been forced on each and every one of us by Fianna Fáil and the folly of Fianna Fáil administrations over the years. Farmers' costs are increasing. Be it the individual or the nation, when outgoings are greater than income, then bankruptcy is the only answer. It is vital that the Government should prepare a plan immediately to ensure that our farmers will get that to which they are entitled.
There are people who object to our entering into the EEC. These people should state publicly what the alternatives are. They allege that, if we join the EEC, the number of farmers will be reduced from 286,000 to 33,000. I do not believe that, but it has to be admitted that the Fianna Fáil programme for economic expansion envisages the numbers being reduced by 70,000 over the next few years. Since 1932 1,200,000 have emigrated and 1,000,000 have left the land. The sad thing is that it is the cream, the young and the ambitious, those who are not prepared to accept low standards and limited opportunities, who have left the land.
Farmers are entitled to a reasonable return for their labour. They are not getting that at the moment. The Minister is a farmer. He has worked the land. He has been closely associated with farmers' organisations. There is enough fighting going on in this country. You have it in the North. We do not want it here, though we had it over the weekend. Let the Minister go to his colleagues in the Cabinet and say to them: "I am a farmer. I understand the responsibilities of a farmer. I know from my own experience that the farmer's income is dropping. I want to ensure that our farmers will be promoted from second-class to first-class citizens. They are entitled to that." If the Minister does that he will make a name for himself.
In my opinion agriculture, from the point of view of income and the standard of living, is at the crossroads. Deputy L'Estrange has referred to the rise in overheads and unavoidable charges. A car is essential in the case of a farmer who has a certain volume of business to do. Farmers do not live in villages, in towns or in cities. They have to look after their cattle. They have to collect medicines. They have to deliver milk. They have a hundred and one things to do. All these are unavoidable expenses, expenses the farmer did not have 20 or 30 years ago. Then he may have had a horse and trap. For four days of the week the horse would do productive work and earn his keep and on the other two days he might be used for either business or pleasure. Today the farmer has heavy overheads and these can only be met by a big increase in the farmer's gross income. My farming friends tell me they need a big grain cheque, a good milk cheque, good cheques for cattle or lambs, for pigs or whatever else it may be. Their problem is to increase their gross income. They cannot increase it because of unavoidable costs.
This problem must be faced. It is easy to abuse the Government and say that the Minister has done nothing; perhaps that could be proved. But we must face the fact that there is a grave need for change in the structure of farming. I cast my mind back to a few years ago when the Department of Lands produced a retirement pension scheme to enable elderly farmers to retire. As far as I remember this retirement pension would not affect the position if the farmer qualified for a non-contributory old age pension. This scheme has been a total failure. Perhaps the pension offered was too meagre. Perhaps it was because the man who loves the land dearly just does not want to give it up. Perhaps he is quite wrong in holding on when it should be passed over to younger members of his own family. But whatever was the result the position was that the particular plan was a failure and that the structure of our farming remains the same.
We had a visit from Dr. Mansholt not very long ago and last week some of us in the Fine Gael Party were privileged to be in Brussels and were entertained to lunch by that most eminent agriculturalist and heard what he had to say about the structure of agriculture. It is quite clear that the minimum size of a farm that you can have is that which will keep a man and his son, or his workman—two men—fully employed. For the remainder of the family — because that would be a very small family — you need industrial employment and his idea was that such industrial employment should exist within three-quarters of an hour's driving from the farm on which the family reside. One might call that supplemented agriculture. This has not happened here with, perhaps, the happy exception of my own county, Louth, where industry is spread through the villages from Dundalk to Drogheda and in the Cooley peninsula and where farmers' sons and daughters may supplement the family income and perhaps produce more from their earnings than is produced by the land itself and by the people who stay at home and engage in industrial employment within, perhaps, fifteen minutes drive of their homes.
We face the Common Market in a situation in which everybody is saying "It will be marvellous for agriculture and disastrous for certain branches of industry". I do not go along with either approach. I completely accept the fact that if Britain goes in we must go in because we cannot isolate ourselves economically just because we happen to be an island. I realise that if 74 per cent of our exports go to Britain, we must go in with them and so preserve our opportunity to export and to pay for the imports we require to feed and clothe our people and preserve the standards of life without which our people will go to Europe or America, allowing the State to become derelict. While I accept that we must go in if Britain goes in, I do not accept, for instance, the simple mathematical calculation that suggests that if beef is 60 per cent dearer the beef producer will have 60 per cent more to spend. If beef is 60 per cent dearer, cereals will be 25 per cent dearer — these are the round figures that are being bandied about. On this basis, taking into account the cost of feeding cattle, one finds that the real advantage is in better production of grass. It must be borne in mind that the cost of the raw materials to produce the beef which will be worth 60 per cent more, will also increase. The cost of labour will have increased. Everything will have increased in cost. Therefore as we all live, not on a gross profit but on a net profit and while there will certainly be an improvement for agriculture within the Common Market, we would be following rainbows if we were to accept the gross figures being suggested for increases in prices as the measure of the advantage for the Irish farmer.
This is no criticism of the Government or of the Minister; it is just a fact of life. It is very necessary that the agricultural structure here should be examined in a more positive way. There is no use in thinking that just because certain prices will rise spectacularly uneconomic holdings will overnight become economic.
I was working for my party in the Donegal-Leitrim by-election and outside one village—naturally, I shall not name it was because I do not want to give people a sense of despair—I met the local parish priest between Masses and we spoke about the area within which I was working. He was quite clear in his mind, and so was I when we had discussed it, that in one section of this area things had gone much too far, that in fact over a radius of perhaps ten miles the great preponderance of people living on the land were over 50 or 60 years of age and the young people had gone to England.
Down a long lane I met one woman who had 14 children, 13 of them working in England and one who had unfortunately been killed while working on a building site in England. This woman was living alone, keeping a few cows and pigs and trying to eke out an existence supplemented, I presume, by money from the decent sons and daughters. That area has gone too far for restructuring based on the people who live there. The only restructuring that could be done would be by the creation of viable holdings from which a decent livelihood could be obtained such as is obtainable in Dublin or in the towns or cities in the British Isles or in Europe or America.
The parish to which I refer had not, in our opinion, reached that stage. It was near a rather large town where there was some industrial employment and quite a number of young people were available if restructuring could be done there and if people on very small holdings could be induced to take annuities and pass on their holdings to others. I am not talking of huge farms. We could then get to the stage where a farm could be managed by two people, both getting a decent livelihood. There are areas in the West of Ireland and in Leitrim, very bad areas, where things have gone too far and it is incorrect to believe that the Common Market is a Shangri La, where nobody ever grows old and where every wish is gratified.
I want to discuss some aspects of agriculture that could be improved. I am involved in the grain trade. I do not very often criticise the Department and I do not offer this as very strong criticism but I notice that there is a very natural approach by the Department to the various seeds they breed at their own plant-breeding stations and these are always high-lighted as the best seeds for the Irish farmer to sow. In very many cases that is true but there are also breeding stations on the Continent and in England. To take wheat, for example, the variety of wheat which was best here for the production of bread for many years was atle and atle originated in Sweden. The most common variety now used is quern, which is bred from atle. We are not investigating sufficiently at our various breeding stations cereal seeds like oats, barley and wheat, which are available from breeders all over the Continent, some of which may be better suited to our particular requirements than those we are breeding ourselves.
It stands to reason that, while breeders here have the advantage of seeing the effect of our climate on seeds, they can also see the effect of our climate on seeds taken from abroad. Farmers would have greater opportunities here if we were more liberal in our approach towards breeders from abroad. We have always been far too conservative about this. The same thing happened in relation to cattle but there we had the difficulty of foot-and-mouth disease. For 20 to 30 years the only animal for the Irish farmer and the Irish economy was the Shorthorn cow. After a long battle and much criticism the Friesian cow appeared on the scene, and it became the most generally used milk cow in the country. As improvements in breeding went on it was discovered that the Friesian breed was one of the best meat producing animals. In all better farming areas the Friesian cow has now taken over, although in poorer areas, because a bigger intake of food is necessary for them, Friesians are not suitable.
Despite the introduction of the Friesian all other breeds of cattle were excluded up until about 12 months ago when it looked as though we were being left behind and it was decided to import Charollais cattle, South Devon cattle, Simmental cattle and Limousin cattle. With the exception of the South Devon cattle, these breeds are from the Continent. It is a highly expensive procedure because they must be imported before they are six months old, because every beast on the Continent must have an injection of live foot-and-mouth vaccine when it is six months old. This means that, if we are to follow our policy, we should not import those cattle unless they undergo a long period of quarantine. However, people are getting a conversion rate on these breeds of cattle which is far higher than the conversion rate of any beef breed that we have here.
The conversion rate of Charollais cattle and some other breeds is said to be as high as 3½ 1bs of meat per day. I will not go into the details of how much meal, grass, silage and hay is required to put that on, but at home I have a young Friesian bull calf and from his date of birth he has put on almost 4 lbs per day and all he was fed was hay, some calf nuts, turnip and milk: he was suckled.
The idea of the housewife wanting a small roast has gone. It looks as if we shall all be buying pieces of meat of different grades and sizes in the supermarket in ten years time. This will probably mean a disimprovement in quality, but it will also mean that there will be no demand for very small animals, such as the Shorthorn Hereford cross, which could be slaughtered almost as baby beef, because they made a small joint which fitted conveniently into the oven. In future we are going to have a piece of meat which is cut up in a factory and put into a polythene bag. This means that large heavy producing breeds are in. As one drives around the country one can see the Charollais cross cattle which have been produced by artificial insemination and farmers boast of their marvellous conversion rate.
So far as seeds and animals are concerned, we must obtain the very best wherever that may come from. I commend the Minister for introducing this feature of farming but I must say he is a little late in doing so. The conservatism which was in the Department of Agriculture for so long seems to be disappearing. If we are to keep on the land as many people as can get as good a living there as they could get in an ordinary industrial job, we must be "with it".
Not so long ago the Common Market had, if I remember correctly, 300,000 tons of butter stored away. I was told that, if one could see it all in one place, it would look like a mountain of butter. Apparently it has all disappeared. Many people in this country are leaving milk production because of the degree of slavery attached to it, having to milk cows twice a day, seven days a week, and because the price of our milk in relation to that in the Common Market is unsatisfactory. At the present time the farming organisations are dissatisfied with the Minister, but I do not intend to refer to that here as I regard agriculture as far too serious a subject to this country to be made the object of advantage-taking across this House.
Apart from the two reasons I have already mentioned, people have also left milk because of brucellosis, which has had to be cleared. When we came to clear it we discovered a large number of our herds were suffering from it. Those farmers who used Strain 19 on their herds for the last 25 years, which is the live brucellosis vaccine, created a situation, as I understand it, where their cows reacted. Even though abortion was not present on the farm, the cows reacted because they have been injected with live brucellosis vaccine. My experience was that out of 40 cows I had 16 reactors on the first occasion, and four on the second. This means I cannot buy a female animal despite the fact that I have never had an abortion on the farm. As I understand it if I had used the dead vaccine, known as Vaccine 45/20—I am not certain that is a correct description but I think it is — I would have got practically as good a result, not quite as good an insurance, perhaps, but I would not have been in the position whereby reaction to the brucellosis test occurred when there was no abortion present.
This has meant that some farmers have had a pretty rough time with their herds. Say a farmer has been breeding a herd of cows for 25 years. In the first year their milk average was a certain figure, in the second maybe it did not improve, in the third it improved a little, in the fourth it improved a little and eventually he got to the stage where he had an extremely good milk production average over his herd. That is something that takes decades to build up. No normal amount of money per cow, even making some allowance for the fact that breeding up was done, even no over-generous amount of money, could compensate a farmer for the loss of that breeding up policy over a period of 25 years.
We are now clearing up our various counties. I have no doubt that, while Louth was waiting to be cleared up, many farmers, who had abortion on their farms, sold cows in sale yards in Louth. This was the reason why Louth produced a high degree of brucellosis. I have no doubt that, since we started in Meath only about a month ago, the same thing has happened there. If a farmer knows he has abortion on his farm and the brucellosis test is coming he can sell animals in the counties where the test has not, as yet, been applied. As a result, the counties that were not dealt with first suffered. Farmers bought cows in the belief that they were absolutely healthy, but in fact they were not healthy because the farmers who sold them knew perfectly well that there had been abortion present on their farms.
While I have indicated that if we join the Common Market we will not get as much profit as the figures might indicate, I believe without doubt that joining the Common Market will be a great help to agriculture in this country because we have got the best grass producing area in Europe. We have got the climate that produces grass. We have probably the cheapest grass in Europe. Since the time Mr. Holmes from New Zealand came over here— I suppose 20 years ago—and described us as growing the least amount of grass that was possible under an Irish sky, great improvements have been made. I could mention the land reclamation project, the lime scheme, the fertiliser subsidy scheme and many other improvements. The net result of all this is that whether our grass is fed in the form of silage or in the form of grass we have the best grass producing area in Europe.
This means that for our lamb trade, for our mutton trade and for our beef trade we must have an advantage. My suggestion, from this side of the House, as somebody who has always been intensely interested in agriculture, would be to try by every means in our power to produce our beef, our mutton and our lamb from the maximum amount of grass. Every extra week we can get of a growing season in the autumn and of a growing season in the spring will be cheap feed. I do not believe there will be any cheap cereal feed. I understand that a ton of poultry meal in Paris costs £50. It seems to me that the sources of animal protein such as meat and bone meal and vegetable protein such as soya bean meal, will not become cheaper; they will become dearer. If that is so, we in Ireland should pin our faith on the introduction of a policy to produce more and more better grass. If we can do that, and can do it for the winter season by making it into silage, we will have produced a source of wealth that will be of the greatest importance to this country. In the case of an industrial product made here, very often all we have is the labour content because all the raw materials that went into it may have come from abroad. But if we produce here beef from grass, all that can come from abroad, and have affect on our balance of payments position in the export of that beef, would be the raw materials for the fertiliser industry and perhaps machinery for work on land project drainage. After that the bullock that leaves here at £100 may be bringing up £90 for the Irish people. We must look on such an operation as one of our most important enterprises, which must not be impeded in any circumstance—either by delay in our efforts to get down to the job or by just not doing the job. We cannot have beef without having cows and it does look as though our cow population is not on an upward trend. We must clear our herds of brucellosis and that means the slaughter of quite a number of breeding cows. That is a sad thing, something we must face up to. The Government might be well advised to consider whether they might improve their present scheme relating to people who leave milk production, whether this scheme is wise at all, whether there should be a complete reappraisal of the situation and whether what we want is single suckling or multiple suckling herds as well as milk producing herds so that the number of steers becoming available for export as beef fed on Irish grass will continue to increase. We know that cycles occur and that for perhaps a year or two there is a downward trend and then for a year or two there is an upward trend. It is rather like the businessman who believes implicitly in his balance sheet, when in fact the truth is that in many businesses a balance sheet should be looked at in relation to the previous one and also in relation to what the next one is likely to be.
We must get down to the maintenance of a very high number of breeding animals on the farm. Such animals must give us maximum amounts of milk and of beef. The greatest possible quantity of grass must be produced also. There is something else we must do. The old concept of the fellow with the dog and stick minding the cattle is gone. At one time a farmer could go to the west of Ireland and buy cattle and fatten them up for sale in October. I went with my father to buy cattle from Deputy Donnellan's father when I was 17 years of age. We bought the cattle outside an hotel in Tuam. That day is gone. We must now get down to the scientific production of beef for sale the whole year round. We must get down to the production of beef for sale at the periods of highest price in the year. We seem to be reaching a stage where there will be a large quantity of beef for export. However, there must be a cycle when, if one has a silage unit and grass in it, one will be able to get his price in February and March. One will get his price at this time of the year just before the grass beef comes on offer. We should aim at having a cycle the whole year round. We want to have a constant supply of Irish beef reaching the markets. This would ensure that we were regarded as important producers and exporters and that the quality and constancy of supply of our beef could be relied upon by our customers. One of the first tenets of good business is that one should have the quality desired and the constancy of supply. The old days of buying cattle in the west of Ireland and bringing them to Meath and Louth for fattening and subsequent sale are gone. We must have grass supplies in either silage or fresh grass on our farms every day of the year.
We must also look at the source of supply of the animals. We must ask ourselves whether our farms are big enough to have a dairy farm on one side and to rear all the calves, or whether we will have a dairy herd which exists on milk and then sell all the calves. We must ask ourselves whether we will have a single-suckle herd or a multiple-suckle the calves whereby we not only suckle the calves which have been born but buy further calves and suckle them. We must make decisions on these matters. The Government must set up machinery to support this very important side of agriculture. The farmers must be encouraged to the stage where they will not be able to stay out of this great adventure but will feel compelled to make the effort required to produce the maximum amount possible on the farm.
Some of Dr. Mansholt's policies work that way. They work in the way that, if one follows certain railway lines, life becomes easy and remuneration becomes attractive, but if one does not one goes broke. It is a mixture of encouragement and warning. There is no evidence of serious thinking on these matters in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries at the present time. We must face the situation that the Common Market is coming, and we must decide where we can get the biggest money for the Irish farmer and for the nation.
Moving now to the production of cereals, I must say that, even though the question of the production of grass is probably the most important of all, the production of cereals is extremely important also. What is the amount of wheat that we ourselves can eat? It does not appear as if there is much opportunity for exporting wheat from this country. There is also the question of the production of feed grain for animals. If the policy is to increase our cattle and our sheep numbers, and our pig and our poultry numbers, there is a need for the production here of large quantities of feed grain. These large quantities of such grain can easily substitute for unnecessary imports from abroad. One must look at our acreage and consider carefully the improvement of our grass production and how many cattle could be supported on it. We must look at the animals which are born and realise that to some extent our grass must be supplemented with cereals and with vegetable and animal proteins.
There is a great opportunity here for the production of more grain. Under Common Market conditions it appears that there will be an improvement of about 25 per cent in the price of grain. The quantity of grain per acre being produced here over the last number of years has improved spectacularly. This is a side of agriculture which has kept pace with increased costs. Farmers growing feeding barley, malting barely, wheat and oats have been able to get a gross profit per acre which has left them with a reasonable net profit on which to live. The grain must be grown on a rotational basis. A figure of 30 per cent would appear to be a sensible one in a good grain-growing area, and this would leave 70 per cent under grass. At present levels, grain production has been able to keep pace with rising costs. If there is to be an increase of 25 per cent when we enter the Common Market, it appears that there is a good opportunity for the production of cereals.
I mentioned before that the idea that cattle raising and animal husbandry did not produce employment is gone. Conversely, the fact is that the production of grain now does not produce the volume of employment that it did about 20 years ago. Long ago all grain had to be stooked and the binder and reaper was the only machine for the work. I remember during the emergency, when the compulsory tillage regulations were enforced, being on a farm where there were 13 carts drawing in barley two and a half miles up a track through several fields. I remember making ricks of barley, wheat and oats at the age of 16 or 17 and being severely criticised if they had to be propped. However, apart from that aspect there was at that time a high volume of employment in the production of grain. During the war when there was, quite properly, compulsory tillage, I remember seeing, in the dark of the morning, three pairs of horses going out to the fields. What would a man plough in a day with a pair of horses? If my memory serves me right he would plough little more than half a statute acre. That meant that right from the period when the farmer ploughed between the stooks in order to get some ploughing done there were these men out ploughing constantly, and then came the harrowing and then the sowing and all the rest of it, and there was this high degree of employment. There is not that same high degree of employment today and that may be a contributory factor as to why grain growing pays.
The employment now rests with the production of meat — lambs, pigs and beef—if produced properly. It cannot pay if it is not properly produced. I have accentuated before, that the fellow with the stick and the dog who buys cattle in May when they are dear, who makes no provision for winter fodder and has to sell them in November when they are cheap, sustains a loss. In fact, in years past, before you would even look at his unavoidable costs, you would find that he might even sustain a gross loss, so that that type of farming has gone. We must now look to a mixed farming economy, which was always the right one anyway, with employment on the farm created by the production of beef, milk, lamb and mutton and a high return in arable areas from the production of grain, but employment on grain production has dropped spectacularly in the last few years.
While I do not wish to detain the House I should discuss the position in regard to pigs, poultry and factory farming. I may be quite wrong but I am afraid that I do not hold out prospects of a very great and splendid future for the production of pork for sale on the Continent — whether it is in the form of pork or bacon does not matter very much, except of course that we would like to have the extra benefit of curing the bacon here. Pigs can be produced by way of factory farming. Again, they can be produced with a lesser amount of labour than is required for beef. This is being done on the Continent. Pork is perhaps the cheapest meat on the Continent and it is the ordinary man's meat. Last week when Dr. Mansholt was good enough to entertain a Fine Gael delegation to lunch in Brussels he mentioned that in his view too many calves were being slaughtered for veal on the Continent. He thinks that the grass producing areas on the Continent should keep their calves and rear them to the beef stage as we do and so get greater profit. I do not think that there is for the Irish farmer — and if I am to stand up here and say my piece I should say what I honestly believe to be true in order not to mislead — a great future for either the production of pigs, of bacon or pork, or for eggs or for broiler chickens. This can be done by rich men. It can be done by highly developed organisations. It can be done in any part of the Continent just as well as it can be done here. If that is so then the transport factor from here to the Continent means less profit for us, perhaps not much less but certainly less profit.
The Irish farmer should concentrate more on the aspect that I have mentioned. At the same time it would be wrong not to do our best to increase or maintain our production of pork, bacon and poultry. While that is all true we should all go for the easy way out and while we have improved the production of grass for whatever purpose, I do not believe that even 50 per cent of our grass fields this year are producing their optimum. We have the climate that allows them to produce their optimum and to do it at an economic rate. I feel that there lies our opportunity, not in the other aspect but in the aspect I have described.
I should like now to mention the position in relation to agri-business, co-operatives, farm businesses, and their relationship with farmers. It is striking to find that while you have a row on at the moment — to which I will refer only in passing because I do not feel it does any good to refer to it at all — between two farming organisations and the Government we never seem to have any sort of row between the co-operatives and the agri-businesses, as I will call them, and the farmers. We have an extremely good organisation whereby the farmer is getting an excellent service. If you go to the south, from the Dungarvan Co-operative Society to the Mitchelstown Co-operative Society and to all the rest of them you will find in the good farming areas a service available to farmers which is second to none. You will find fine men making every effort and achieving good results. It does not matter whether it is a co-operative or a merchant or a country miller, they are doing a good job and it would be churlish of us if we did not mention that. Of course I am one of them myself but I am not including myself. I would say I am doing a bad job. However, we must mention these men, whose names we may not bandy about in the House, who are giving agriculture an extremely good show. There has arisen in their situation too a crisis in regard to costs. The Department of Agriculture and the Minister — and I will not go into detail because I know too much about this as I am involved —should be made aware of the fact that these agri-businesses have reached, in certain respects, respects which have already been mentioned in the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of Agriculture, a severe crisis in costs. It is something that must be investigated by the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce, by the flour millers, Bord Bainne, the Pigs and Bacon Commission and various other bodies. My information is that as a result of wage increases in the last 18 months and the lack of any comparable increase so far as the finished products are concerned a crisis in many of these businesses will occur. In a time of credit squeeze these people will hardly be carried by banks unless the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and those who have the opportunity to do so indicate their interest in the matter and their intention to set things right.
I do not want to discuss the dispute between the flour millers and the Minister for Industry and Commerce regarding the price of flour—I have personal reasons for not so doing. I commend the agreement recently made between the firm of Guinness and the farmers on an increase in the price of barley. This was accepted by a democratic vote of the farmers; it was a fair increase and will remunerate the farmers for their extra costs. As a person having some experience in this field I consider there is a crisis in regard to costs in the agricultural sector at the moment. This matter must be looked at, not from the point of view of how many votes might be lost if increases were given to certain bodies for services rendered, or for goods they produce, but in the light of the excellent work carried out, particularly in the South of Ireland, to take up efficiently and at good prices the farmers' production. This work should not be impeded in any way.
The co-operative movement and the other groups I have indicated have been of benefit to the farmers in the last 20 years. We have only to look at our cheese production, the way we have diverted milk into the various lines of chocolate crumb and cheese products, and the manner in which we have provided many advantages to the farmers, to realise that in this regard we are keeping apace with developments on the Continent. At the same time, it must be stated so far as the structure of our farms is concerned and the opportunities available to young people to get as much out of farming as they would secure if they worked in industry, that in these matters we are lagging behind.
I am 47 years of age and I remember when the situation existed that wheat, barley and oats in County Louth had to await the availability of dryers. I remember what happened to grain in bad harvests, such as in 1954; the grain rotted as did the sacks and high costs were charged to farmers because the sacks were of no use to anyone. Nowadays I see on all sides that farmers have got bulk trailers; that there is an adequate number of dryers and combine harvesters. Farmers are now much more skilled in the use of combine harvesters; I remember when they first got them they used to skim malting barley, which was not good for the brewing trade. Nowadays they come in with the grain always in a perfect condition—a rejection of the grain rarely occurring. There are available to them dryers, stores and a quick turn round for their bulk trailers and they have no trouble with sacks.
The next debate in this House will be about the jute industry. It is impossible to make omelettes without breaking eggs and we must express our sympathy in that regard. At the same time, I would say to the Minister— and I am sure the chairmen of co-operative societies and co-operative managers will agree with me and perhaps will make their views known to the Minister, if they have not done so already—that in the agricultural business even though there have been increases in wage rates and general costs in the last 18 months increases have not been allowed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce for the finished product. Similarly, where services have been provided, remuneration for the services has not been increased. This could affect adversely the smooth, proper and most efficient production of Irish agricultural goods.
The horse industry earns a considerable amount of money. We have the National Stud; we provide stallions in various parts of the country to facilitate farmers who may have a half-bred mare and wish to have the services of a stallion. This is done in County Cork, in the west of Ireland and in various other parts. In my part of the country we appear to have gone far too upstage — we must have a thoroughbred animal or none at all, and mostly it is none at all. Farmers who have a piece of winterage that may not be very good land should consider seriously the possibility of keeping a couple of Irish draught mares and availing of the service of a stallion provided by the Department at a nominal fee. They can breed good half-bred hunters for which they can get most attractive prices. At this moment farmers can secure very good prices for such hunters. I am sorry that this is not being done to a greater extent and I would suggest to farmers that this practice might very profitably be reintroduced. Admittedly, it is necessary to wait for a couple of years before good progeny is available but the feeding costs are not very high. In this instance I would mention west Limerick where, as a result of this sideline, the farmer has a few hundred pounds in his pocket which otherwise he would not have. The people with the expensive thoroughbred mares can, to a great extent, look after themselves. Of course, the work of the National Stud should not be forgotten; they are doing a good job.
There are times when the purchase price of a stallion or even a brood mare is such that it is only either a consortium of people or the State itself that can afford it. In that context the State has done its job. It has introduced Tulyar, Vemi and various other animals who would have been lost and whose progeny and bloodlines would have been lost to us if it had not been for the policy over the years. While that is true, I would point out to farmers that to have a brood mare around the place will not break them. They may have bad luck, they may have an animal that is unfruitful or they may have a young animal that injures itself or has a blemish of some kind and, unlike a bullock, will be faulted for that blemish and will not get a high price. At the same time, taking the swings and the roundabouts, there is no doubt at all that there is money in the breeding of horses, whether they be pedigree horses or Irish draught crossed with a pedigree stallion or whether they be half-breds or three-quarter breds.
I wish to refer now to some of the difficulties that seem constantly to beset the work of the land project. I know of a case where five farmers wanted to run a drain down the side of a field in order to free their lands from flooding. When they started to excavate, a man who had, believe it or not, a well in an outhouse, objected vociferously because, he said, they would dry out his well. At that stage the whole operation stopped. I suppose the decision lies with the farmers as to whether they proceed. Perhaps common law then comes into it and the land project officer in the case is out of the whole business.
There appears to me to be too many cases in which the land project work is stultified by the most ridiculous objections by certain people. At times the land project officers are too conservative as to whether land can be drained. I know that if your levels are wrong you cannot drain land and you have a bog that will be there when we are all dead. However, the machinery operations that are available now were not available in such great quantity or efficiency when the land project was first started, and it is possible to do things now that could not be done then. There could be a more liberal approach to the work of the land project.
I do not want to keep the House talking all night about agriculture, which is a very easy thing to do if you are particularly interested in it, but let me come to the question of the provision of self-feed silage units. I do not think there is a great need for very expensive self-feed silage units. It is possible, without going into secondhand materials, to produce a self-feed silage unit at a capital cost of £2 per annum. I know this because I have done it myself. Sometimes I see farmers spending considerably more and it is not necessary.
The farmer who provides a self-feed silage unit at that cost has a most valuable asset on his farm. He has something which will obviate the slavery of cutting silage out of a silage pit and carrying it to animals. It will enable him to ensure that his animals are well fed during the winter and that his land is not poached and will be three weeks earlier with the grass in the spring. If there is a bad summer the good farmer cannot be blamed for having bad hay, but if he makes good silage he will have something as good as the lush grass that the bullock or the heifer was eating out in the field in the month of May or June.
I would ask the Minister to increase the grants he is giving for self-feed silage units even if it comes to the point of decreasing grants for other aspects of farming if he has not got the money. The most important and fundamental thing we can do is to provide this great Irish grass all the year round and to do it we must have self-feed silage units.
There should be very strict discipline in regard to the manner in which the self-feed silage unit is created. It is important, for instance, that tractors and trailers can drive straight in on top of the grass that is going to be silaged by making the silage unit on a slope of a field so as to avoid the necessity of man labour or the purchase of a blower to blow the grass in at a cost of £600 or £700.
There should be grants for farmers' machinery co-operatives. The trouble with silage is that the small farmer cannot make it because he cannot afford the capital cost of the machinery to do it economically and efficiently. At home four farmers and myself have formed a machinery partnership—I do not think you could call it a co-operative; you would have to call it partnership—and I think I should explain to the House how it works: a larger farmer has two tractors, which he does not own; the partnership owns them. A small farmer has one tractor. Then we have a complete set of silage-making machinery and of course along with this there are muckspreaders, part of the silage trailers. We levy upon ourselves a figure per acre of silage cut and a figure per tractor, which we pay into this partnership and lodge in a local commercial bank. If you have 50 acres of silage and the levy was £4 10s or £5 you must lodge in the partnership £250. At the annual general meeting the levy per acre, whatever it might be, and the levy per tractor is assessed on the basis of renewing this machinery every five years.
The machinery was bought with a loan from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. When the time comes to make the half-yearly repayment, there is enough money in the commercial bank in the local town for the partnership to make it. Money is being saved and when we feel that the tractors and the muckspreaders and the silage machinery have reached the end of their useful life, we will have enough money to replace them, and we will sell them second-hand if anyone is prepared to buy them.
So far it has worked extremely well. It has been running for three years. If we had included hay-making machinery I have no doubt that we would have fallen out long ago because, on the day the sun was shining, my friend Deputy O'Connor and I would both want the machinery if we were in partnership. It works with regard to the making of silage. It is practical. It means that the smaller farmer who has not got a unit big enough to allow him to have a complete set of silage making machinery, has it available to him. We have our agreement and it works. In fact, since the agreement was made, one farmer decided that he would leave the partnership. We had made provision for what happened when he did. His interest was computed on a computation which was included in the agreement. He got what his interest was worth and the others carried on.
With the advent of silage-making this is possible. This should be encouraged by the Department and the committees of agriculture. It can be compared to an effort to get a group water scheme going. If farmers can come together voluntarily and do this, they will be able to have a much higher level of production—even though their units are small — than they would if they were working on their own. I mention this to the Minister for consideration when he is deciding on his future policy.
If he were over here and we were over there I am certain that my good friend Deputy Creed would be asking me to bring up this partnership agreement so that he could have a look at it. However, while that will not be delayed for very long, it would be wrong if something is working right not to give the Minister the full information and advice on it. I am now informing the Minister that if he wants all the details on how this small operation works, I will be delighted to provide them for him. It could be of great help to the farmers of this country.
May I end as I began by saying that we all live on a net profit? When we talk about a 60 per cent increase in the price of beef on entering the Common Market, that does not mean that the farmers' income from beef will go up by 60 per cent. The calf will want calf nuts. The cow will want some cereals. The increase in the price of those commodities is estimated at 25 per cent in the same volume in which the increase in the price of beef is estimated at 60 per cent. We must also remember that you do not put a pound of beef on a beast for every pound of meal you feed it. In fact, it is considerably less. While there will be a pretty good improvement, there will not be the spectacular and lavish improvement that some people seem to think there will be.
I am disappointed at the Government's approach to the Common Market in their application for membership. I am more disappointed on the industrial side because they should have asked for special terms to a greater extent than they did. They asked for special terms for jute but, in my opinion, that was no more than a sop to the Minister for Industry and Commerce because he was in trouble in his own constituency. I merely mention this in passing. The details printed the other day about this factory show that jute is in trouble no matter what happens.
There should have been a more detailed approach in relation to our agricultural problems. As we move towards the Common Market, within our agricultural economy there are certain aspects about which we might need to ask for special provision. It is not my job to retail them in the House but it is the job of the Department to watch carefully for pit-falls. At times the Labour Party say things about the Common Market with which I do not agree, but I definitely agree with them on one point, that is, that the Government have not been bargaining hard enough. If there is one thing on which the Labour Party and this party agree in this regard, it is that bargaining has not been a feature of our approach to our application to join the Common Market.
The Minister should know that if the continentals get a chance, in the vernacular of the countryman, they will take the pants off you. It is our job to see that they do not do that. We need to bargain as we never bargained before. Bearing in mind the size of our economy in relation to the size of the economies of Britain and the Common Market, I do not think that, if we ask for special terms where special terms are needed, that will have any effect one way or the other on whether we get in. If Britain goes in, we go in, but we should go in with our bargains. The Minister should make quite certain that the Irish farmer, the Irish countryman, does not lose anything that can be gained by hard bargaining as we approach the Common Market.
I should like to preface my opening remarks with a word of congratulation for our farmers large and small up and down the country. They have done a magnificent job in improving their farms, and their herds, and their position generally. However, in making that statement I do not want it to be thought that I am suggesting that they are getting the full recompense to which they are entitled, particularly in regard to milk.
I find in my own area that, in spite of the extra subsidies which have been given to milk over the past number of years, the price has not increased in actual fact. I checked in various areas over the past three weeks and I found that the average milk price throughout Kerry in the big creameries is not more than 2s a gallon, and in many cases less. This includes the top premium paid for quality milk. This price almost obtained in that area eight years ago and it is hard to understand why it still obtains throughout the area.
The farmers have done a good job in the improvement of milk under very trying conditions because, with all due respect to the various Departments concerned, the farmers have not got the help and assistance they should have got to bring about the position which they have brought about by themselves, by and large, and by their own efforts. In many cases they are left without water supplies and water schemes which are so necessary to them having regard to their way of life. In some cases accommodation roads were not brought up to standard. Money was not made available. This is all very necessary having regard to the pattern and way of life of our farmers today. Of course, there must be good roads to facilitate the haulage of produce by heavy vehicles. It is a pity that all the Departments have not made a combined effort to help these people in the difficult work they do.
Our farmers are looking forward to the challenge of the Common Market and have been very progressive in gearing themselves towards membership of that Community so that there is an air of great optimism among them. From my experience of the Continent, I would say that our farmers have nothing to fear so far as continental farmers are concerned because our farmers are intelligent and industrious and these attributes should receive the rewards they deserve in an enlarged Community.
A substantial increase in milk prices is necessary. For the past couple of years I have been encouraging mountain farmers to produce beef rather than milk as being the most suitable for smallholders. The mountain farmer delivers milk only at the surplus stage, say, from June to mid-September, because he must milk-feed calves for the first two or three months to make them strong enough to survive in the difficult conditions of the harsh winter months.
I would ask the Minister to re-examine the beef subsidy scheme with a view to seeing if the subsidy could be paid in respect of the first two calves. This would mean a lot to a person having not more than eight or ten cows. It is wrong that such a person should be excluded from receiving payment for the first two calves. It should not be of great cost to the Exchequer if payment in respect of the entire herd were made in the case of a smallholder with four or six cows.
I have never accepted, and I never shall accept, any statement to the effect that there is no place in Europe for this type of farmer. It is very seldom that a smallholding is advertised in the daily papers. It is nearly always the person having a holding of 150 or more acres who is selling out. A smallholder knows no other way of life than to work the holding on which generations of his people had made a living. In my own county I see young men who are quite prepared to continue, as their fathers did, to make a living from the land. Perhaps they are not earning the sort of money that their brothers may be earning in industries or elsewhere but they are happy in this continuous way of life. It is our duty to help them in any way possible. These people work very hard, and in many cases farmers in mountainous areas have modernised their homes and farmyards. In some of the wealthier counties I have found holdings which, instead of having roads leading to them, have tractor tracks and there are houses in a dismal condition.
The Minister should direct more attention to mountain farmers in particular. In mountainous areas of Kerry, there is a tendency towards an increase in population. The determination of people in these areas to make a living from their holdings can overcome all the obstacles which people from outside very often say cannot be overcome. I have no hesitation in saying that the dole has helped greatly in my county as it has helped in other parts of the country.
I hate the word "dole". I was one of the first people to exert pressure for the introduction of this system and at the time of its introduction I endeavoured to have it paid as an agricultural grant but no method of levying it correctly could be found except through this system. It was given accordingly to help those people to overcome the difficulties of the time. I am very glad that it is available for them. I have seen young farmers with four and five children who on holdings of 12 to 15 acres are producing per acre, four to six times as much as is obtained from the very rich lands in the midlands.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.