I am grateful to you, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter. The pig production sector on family run farms is in serious financial crisis. Since September 1992 producers in this sector have been making losses on every pig produced as a result of a highly adverse price ratio between pig and feed prices. For 1993 pigmeat prices per kilo were more than 13 per cent down on 1992 levels. Prices in 1993 were lower than they had been since 1985 and reached an absolute through in October 1993. During 1993 when pig prices fell by 13 per cent compared with the previous year, feed prices showed a decline of less than 1 per cent — the difference between those two reductions is the squeeze on pig producers' margins. For 1993 the pig price to feed price ratio was at its lowest level since 1985, falling from 6:2 in 1992 to 5:4 in 1993, reaching a trough of 5:1 in October-November 1993. Therefore, there is no prospect of any margin in those conditions.
It is reckoned that in order for our pig output to be competitive with UK product, feed prices here would have to be £25 per tonne less than currently. As a result of those conditions huge numbers of family run units are on the verge of collapse. In recent months significant numbers have been bought out by what I would describe as the corporate sector. This is not a new phenomenon but is new in terms of the scale in the last few months. The owners have been forced to sell due to the crippling losses they have been incurring for quite some time.
The Government could do a number of things in the short term to alleviate this problem and give some breathing space for medium to long term planning. In the first instance — this is directly within the control of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry — the veterinary inspection fee of £1 per pig could be suspended for 1994. Second, family-run units of, say, up to 300 pigs — should be eligible for the small business subsidised loan scheme recently announced by the Minister for Enterprise and Employment. The scheme was originally announced by the Minister of State at that Department but some days later it was found that the details of the scheme had not been tied up and it was announced again by the Minister. This scheme, which is designed for small scale enterprises, would be of particular assistance to family-run pig units.
Third, the family-run pig production sector should be given the same tax status as the corporate sector. Without action of this kind the family-run sector will simply disappear from pig production. I should like the Minister to tell me his proposals for dealing with this problem. It is not as if he does not know what the problem is. Representatives of the sector have spoken to him and his colleagues in the Department on a number of occasions during the past year. So far they have received no reaction whatsoever. I should now like to know the measures the Minister proposes to take to give some breathing space to the family-run pig production sector for medium and long term planning.