asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will ensure that the maximum quantity of home grown wheat is utilised for flour milling.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Milling of Home Grown Wheat.
7.
It has always been my view that home grown wheat should be used to the greatest extent possible in the manufacture of flour in this country and I have lost no opportunity to make this view known. However, the arrangements for the growing of the wheat and its utilisation are essentially matters between wheat growers and flour millers.
Is the Minister aware that in 1978 2 per cent of our flour needs were imported and that this had grown by 1983 to 22 per cent? Is he aware that certain firms closed their mills here and continued operating in Britain and elsewhere in the knowledge that they could import flour here? Does the Minister not consider this to be very detrimental to our balance of payments and to our self-sufficiency in an emergency? Surely there is some action open to him.
Of course we are concerned about the level of flour imports. In order to prevent them one would have to be able to prove to the EEC Commission that these imports constituted dumping. My advice is that such a case cannot be made on the basis of present imports.
We have approximately 180,000 acres of winter wheat this year, a great percentage of which could be milled. Does the Minister not agree that some move must be made to see that winter and spring wheat as far as possible is milled into flour rather than converted into animal feed while we import our flour needs?
The French would block the ports.
The problem is market trends. The cost of feedingstuffs is leading people to put more wheat into provender mills rather than into bread making and flour mills. I do not think there is much we can do about it.