asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he is aware that farmers who are rearing only beef cattle will find it difficult to have their farms considered as development farms, as some progressive farms have been turned down; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Development Farms.
193.
As far as I am aware no farms have been turned down as development farms. Preliminary planning exercises which have been carried out recently indicate that with good planning, beef cattle rearing farms can attain development status.
Is the Minister aware a farmer has been told it would not be possible for his farm to qualify as a development farm although officials of his Department spent two days trying to see if they could fit him in? Could the Minister re-examine the scheme to see if beef farmers could be included?
This is not a case that has been turned down. It is one of the cases on which some exercise was done. It would be easy to bring the man in question into the modernisation scheme as a development farmer but he cannot decide to have his own programme and stay with something that is not paying dividends.
Am I correct in assuming this man's application was processed?
He was one of a number of cases. People who are operating the scheme must be educated about its working. Individual farms were looked at from various points of view. I do not wish to deal with an individual case; heavy borrowing and other factors may be involved that make the cases exceptional and they might be identified. I do not wish to do that.