Vol. 733 No. 2
29 Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will allow rough grazing to be taken into account when estimating the single farm payment and discontinue the policy that only allows arable land to be included. [12962/11]
I can confirm that rough grazing is eligible for the single farm payment scheme and other area-based schemes such as the disadvantaged areas scheme and the grassland sheep scheme. The terms and conditions of the single payment scheme advise applicants, inter alia, that if they are to draw down full payments in respect of their single payment scheme entitlements, an eligible hectare must be declared in respect of each entitlement. In this context, an eligible area is land that is used for an agricultural activity and includes land used to grow cereals, oilseeds, short rotation coppice, miscanthus, protein crops, sugar beet, maize, fodder beet, turnips, kale and grass for silage, hay or grazing. Eligible land is all land that is subject to agricultural activity by an applicant. It may be used for arable crops, hay, silage or grazing by farm animals, for example, or the applicant may choose to top it on an annual basis.
Land that was declared on a 2008 single payment scheme application, gave rise to a payment and was subsequently afforested can be eligible in certain circumstances. If an applicant is not producing crops or animals from the land, he or she can choose to top it in order to maintain it in good agricultural and environmental condition, as required under the scheme. In the case of hill or mountain land or marginal land, or other rough grazing which cannot be mechanically topped, if the applicant wishes to claim the land under the area-based schemes, the only way to maintain it in good agricultural and environmental condition is to graze it with sufficient cattle or sheep. If scattered scrub is present in a land parcel, farmers are required to make a percentage reduction in the claimed area to allow for the ineligible area.
I thank the Minister for his reply. Last year and again this year, farmers have been making amendments to their area-based applications. The Department seems to be instructing them to remove areas of scrub or rough grazing from their applications. As a result, people are losing their eligibility to entitlements in respect of lands on hills and in glens that are subject to normal farm practices. On the other hand, some land owners are burning scrub or gorse from their lands to ensure they are eligible. Such practices cannot be condoned in any way. The Department and the Government have to make sure such practices are not encouraged in any way. The Department's interpretation of rough grazing refers to land that can be accessed by cattle other than during a short period of the summer months. The Minister spoke about land that cannot be mechanically topped. Such lands should be taken into account. I ask the Minister to get his officials to re-examine the Department's interpretation, which is too strict, and to consider relaxing the regulations that apply to rough grazing land that can be accessed by stock in certain circumstances. The Minister should ensure the burning of such lands is not encouraged in any way by the Department.
I will look into the issue. I am quite familiar with the single farm payment scheme because we make an application in respect of our farm every year. I am also familiar with the types of land that are and are not eligible under the scheme. We have a great deal of clifftop land that is not eligible, for obvious reasons. If land is to be eligible, it has to be farmable land. It has to have the capacity to carry stock for grazing or rough grazing purposes, or to carry crops. If agricultural activity like grazing is not taking place on the land, the farmer is required to maintain the land in a reasonable condition. Topping may be required in such circumstances. If unwelcome growth is compromising the agricultural potential of the land, the farmer is required to deal with it. I will raise the issue with my officials. I was a little unsure about the point of the Deputy's original question. That is why my response was quite technical. If Deputy Moynihan wants to talk to me about the matter, I am available for such a discussion. If he thinks specific cases are being treated unfairly, we will examine them.
Absolutely. I thank the Minister. I would welcome an opportunity to discuss the matter.
30 Deputy Michael Colreavy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the arrangements put in place for students to complete a full skippers ticket in his Department’s training school following the retirement and non replacement of the second teacher in Castletownbere, County Cork. [13032/11]
Bord Iascaigh Mhara is the leading provider of vocational training to the seafood industry. By providing accredited training services to fishing, aquaculture and processing personnel, it underpins this indigenous industry and adds to its skill set. Bord Iascaigh Mhara's seafood industry training programmes are delivered through its training centres at the National Fisheries College in Greencastle, the regional fisheries centre in Castletownbere, its three mobile coastal training units and its seafood development centre in Clonakilty. The National Fisheries College and the regional fisheries centre are equipped to deliver a broad range of courses that are accredited by the Department of Transport and the Further Education and Training Awards Council.
Deputy Colreavy probably knows all of that, so I will answer his question. I do not want to talk my way out of answering it, which is something may previous Ministers were perceived to do. The employment contract of a master mariner instructor in the regional fisheries centre in Castletownbere concluded in August 2008. As a result, the skipper full certificate of competency course could not be offered in Castletownbere and aspiring candidates were redirected to Bord Iascaigh Mhara's National Fisheries College in Greencastle, County Donegal. Following the retirement of a master mariner in Greencastle last December, Bord Iascaigh Mhara had to cancel the skipper full certificate course there. That was alluded to in the Deputy's question. My Department and Bord Iascaigh Mhara have commenced discussions on addressing the personnel needs of the delivery of the skipper full certificate course, in the context of the board's employment control framework targets.
Bord Iascaigh Mhara has not been able to fill positions that became vacant when people retired, essentially, as a result of the recruitment ban. It is crazy that the board does not have the skill set to provide the full skipper course about which Deputy Colreavy asked. Over the past 18 months or so, there has been a significant increase in interest in the fisheries sector. For the first time in many years, young people want to enter the fishing industry, for example, by becoming skippers and deck hands. Many courses are still on offer and are being availed of. The training course that leads to the highest qualification for the skippers of fishing vessels in Ireland is not being provided at the moment. We need to resolve that issue with Bord Iascaigh Mhara. I am trying to do that at the moment. It will require sanction from the Department of Finance.
Last night, the Minister indicated the fisheries and fish processing business has a potential value of €1 billion. While I agreed wholeheartedly with the vision for agri-food and fisheries he set out, I cautioned that the policies, practices and choices that are made are often contrary to his vision and do not bring us closer to achieving its objectives. What we have here is an example of that phenomenon.
Will the Deputy ask a question please?
What plans are in place to implement the report that was done regarding business plans for the development of fishery harbours centres nationally? Have any students been unable to finish their full skippers ticket by virtue of the resignation of the teacher in question? Do the Departments not engage in forward planning? Surely someone knew that this essential cog in the wheel was about to retire.
To clarify the issue, two individuals retired rather than resigned. Bord Iascaigh Mhara has advised that in the interim and as a matter of urgency it is seeking instructors on a service supply basis through the Government's e-tender website. The short-term solution it seeks is to bring in someone from the private sector to provide the services required to train skippers for the fishing industry. It is unlikely, however, that this will provide a long-term solution for people in Castletownbere, Killybegs, Greencastle, Dingle or on the east coast. The reason this case arose and other, similar cases are arising in many other Departments is that the recruitment ban prevents departmental staff from being replaced on retirement. A problem often arises when someone with a specific skill set who can normally be replaced by someone else in the Department retires from a Department. In this case, however, the skill set required of a master mariner to teach the course in question meant that no one within Bord Iascaigh Mhara was available to replace the individual in question. As a result, we must resort to the use of e-tenders to have the persons in question replaced in the short-term. I accept, however, that a long-term solution is required.
May I ask a brief supplementary question?
Speakers should keep questions and replies short.
Does this case not beg the question as to why provision is not made to allow persons with an essential qualification be replaced, especially if failure to replace the person will damage the vision the Minister outlined so well last night?
I concur with the Deputy. However, such provision is being made in some cases. For example, the Department recently secured sanction to increase the number of teachers in agricultural colleges to respond to the problem arising from increased student numbers. While the case before us should not have arisen, Ireland does not have many master mariners, specifically those who could fill the post in question or would like to join the public sector. The position requires a specific skill set and only a relatively small number of people want to do the skippers course. While we are resolving the problem in the short term, I accept the need for a longer term solution.
31 Deputy Tom Fleming asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when 2010 agri environment options scheme payments will be made; and when will he get agreement on the proposal made to EU Commission last year to increase the natura agri environment options scheme payment from €75 per hectare to €150 per hectare. [12826/11]
I have a long reply. I will read out the final paragraphs as it will be of interest to Deputy Fleming.
When the agri-environment options scheme was launched last year the intention was to increase the rate for designated land from €75 per hectare, as originally announced, to €150 per hectare. My Department has been in discussion with the Commission with a view to obtaining approval for this proposal. However, given the current financial constraints and the overall funding limits which have been introduced in the national recovery plan and to ensure that as many applicants as possible can be accepted into the scheme, I have decided that the rate for designated land will be €75 per hectare.
At that time, a second request was made to allow farmers in agri-environment options schemes to increase the amount of nitrogen they may put on meadow grass. This request was put to me again at a meeting with representatives of the Irish Farmers' Association this morning. We will examine the issue and I hope to be able to give a more welcome and satisfactory answer on the issue of nitrogen and meadow grass. We will not be in a position to accommodate concerns on increasing the payment under the agri-environment options scheme from €75 to €150 per hectare.
While I understand the Minister is constrained by the national finances and, in particular, the terms of the IMF-EU agreement, his response is most disappointing in light of the widespread optimism that payments under the agri-environment options scheme would increase from €75 to €150 per hectare. Participants in the scheme are the custodians of the land. Their family farms are, by and large, located in disadvantaged areas. It is great that such farms are still viable and making a contribution to society and rural communities.
Does the Deputy have a question?
I ask the Minister to reconsider his decision given that participation in the scheme will cost money for farmers in special areas of conservation and special protection areas. His decision will act as a major disincentive to participation in future schemes. If we are to incentivise young people in rural areas to remain on the land to make their living, it must be reconsidered.
While I concur that the decision is disappointing, I had to make choices on the agri-environment options scheme because it was launched without financial provision being made for it in the budget. We had to create a budget for the scheme and faced a choice in this regard. We could increase the payment for the designated areas from €75 to €100 per hectare which would have cost approximately €4 million per annum and required us to reduce the number of successful applicants for the agri-environment options scheme. However, only so much money is available. This year, €25 million has been made available in each of the next five years to fund 2011 applications to join the scheme.
The Deputy is correct that it is difficult to incentivise farmers to continue to keep sheep and cattle on marginal land and they must be supported. For this reason, such farmers are first in line to join the agri-environment options scheme this time around.
Many people have suggested that the number of applications for the agri-environment options scheme is low. To clarify the matter, approximately 7,000 applications have been made under the scheme. At least 6,000 applications have been received to date and it is estimated that once applications are received from various offices, the total number of applications for the new scheme will be approximately 7,000. I want to ensure all applications are accepted. If I were to increase the payment for the relevant designated area from €75 to €150 per hectare, the decision would have implications for other small farmers in need of support who cannot join the scheme despite being located in Natura areas and special areas of conservation. The problem I have is that I must make choices in the context of an expenditure ceiling in my Department. That is the reason for my decision.
32 Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the steps he has taken, in conjunction with his European colleagues, to activate an EU wide milk quota system instead of a national quota. [12963/11]
This issue was debated in some detail last night and is one on which I agree with the Deputy. We need to find a way to allow the dairy industry to expand before 2015 when the European Union wide quota system ends. We have many young and not so young farmers in many counties who have the capacity to significantly increase milk output. They are doing so already at levels dangerously above their quota allocations in the expectation that they will get away with it this year because they got away with it last year. While we need to encourage expansion and growth, unfortunately under the rules of the milk check agreement, Ireland is only being given an additional 1% milk quota each year until 2015. That is nowhere near being sufficient to allow us to expand in the way we would like to over the next five years. So the Food Harvest 2020 target of a 50% increase in milk production by 2020 will, at the moment, require a massive expansion in the five years from 2015 to 2020 due to the restrictions before 2015. We are trying to find a political solution to that problem because many EU countries are under quota. We would like to see what the Deputy has called for, which is an EU-wide quota, so that when some countries are under quota others that wish to be over quota would be given the flexibility. That is not a runner politically at the moment, however, in the European Commission or in Germany and France. I am in the process of trying to put together a coalition of countries in order to find some kind of political resolution to this matter.
In the past year, both Denmark and the Netherlands have had significant super-levy fines applied to them for being over quota. We were less than 1% under quota and only just made it. There are four or five EU countries that want to expand their dairy industries and which need the flexibility to do so, but it will be a significant political challenge in order to be successful. All farmers that are planning milk production above the quota allocated to them should be careful before choosing to do so because we are in danger of being over quota this year.
I thank the Minister for his response. Excess figures provided by various milk processors range from a low of 17% to a high of 25% year-on-year from April 2010 to April 2011. There is a major effort at every level cautioning people to avoid going over the quota. On 31 March this year, we were a little bit under quota because milk supplies were held back and managed at farm-gate level. The Minister referred to other EU countries that have had super-levy fines, and said he is building a coalition of other member states. Where is the pressure coming from within the EU and what countries, if any, are holding out against an agreement such as this?
That is a good question. I understand that France and Germany do not even want to entertain a discussion on this issue because the milk health check was agreed after a lot of difficult debate, particularly with France and Germany. Many people in both those countries would rather not see an end to the milk quota system. They see restricting milk output as a way of securing price consistency in future. Therefore the very idea that we would allow countries like Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands to expand milk production dramatically in the short term is perceived as a risk to milk price stability between now and 2015. Whereas they have conceded that after 2015, when there is a long lead-in time to prepare for that, milk quotas will end, they are certainly in no mood to concede that there should be significant increases in milk production between now and then.
The counter argument is that milk production is falling in certain countries. In my view, overall milk production across the EU would not increase if Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands were to increase production dramatically. That is because countries like Slovenia are 17% below quota. Our closest neighbour, Britain, is well below quota and it is not an issue there because production is nowhere near the quota. European thinking is needed here.
Many of the new markets for Irish dairy products are actually outside the EU. One of the reasons I will have to leave the Chamber early this evening is that I am meeting the Chinese Minister for agriculture. He is visiting Ireland this week to look at our production and traceability systems, as well as our quality food production. There are also exciting markets for infant formula, for example. Ireland sells 16% of the world's total infant formula exports and we want to fill the enormous and expanding market in China. The irony is that the expansion of the Irish dairy industry may not affect European markets at all. It is up to me to make persuasive arguments to open up a reasonable discussion on this issue. I am trying to do so and, to that end, there is an informal Council meeting in Hungary next week where we will start the process.
If, as the Minister said, France and Germany are opposing quota increases and trying to maintain farm-gate prices, is it not better to have an orderly expansion of the European-wide dairy industry, rather than when the quotas go post-2015? Is there a political point to be made that it is bowing to the inevitable at European level?
That point needs to be made and I will do so. We need to make, and are making, reasonable arguments on interest rates relating to stability funds but unfortunately these things take time. Sometimes we are dealing with stubborn viewpoints in other European countries.
33 Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the measures he will introduce to protect farmers from the destructive effect on Irish agriculture of the major supermarket multiples and the low prices they are paying to farmers in view of the fact that in 1996 producers were receiving 37% of the retail price and this has reduced to 19% in 2011. [12970/11]
I am glad of the opportunity to answer this question because farmers are outside Leinster House today protesting on this issue. Many farmers believe they are not getting a fair percentage of the margins made on food sales by retail outlets and big supermarket chains in particular. It is important to note, however, that my powers and influence in this area are limited. Prices in big outlets such as Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Musgraves and SuperValu are, by and large, determined by competitive realities. We are working to resolve this matter at European level. The European Commission is examining this issue to encourage more collective bargaining power for primary producers, that is, the farmers. The programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce a fair trade Bill, which would even the scales in negotiations between primary producers and retailers. I intend to ensure that that legislation is brought forward. It is not being drafted by me but by my colleague the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton.
This morning, I spent some time speaking about this issue with IFA representatives. The response of the Competition Authority to a complaint made against the IFA was, in my view, excessive and I am uncomfortable with what happened. A body such as the IFA, which represents so many people, should be treated with more respect than it received from the Competition Authority. There is an ongoing investigation, however, and we must await the results.
It is important to remember that the majority of food produced in Ireland is not sold through multiples or other retailers here, but is exported. While we obviously want to secure a fair price for farmers' produce, we must also ensure that food production is price-competitive, because the majority of food produced in Ireland is exported and sold in foreign markets. It is about getting the balance right between those two issues.
I thank the Minister for his reply. Like most Deputies, I am concerned by the outrageous act of the Competition Authority last week when it did a dawn raid on the Irish Farm Centre with 15 officers and a search warrant, just because of one person's complaint. It was totally high-handed and that is the problem.
There is too much regulation and I am glad the Minister will meet his colleague, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Deputy Bruton. In 1996, producers were receiving 37% of the retail price, but this level reduced to 19% by 2011. I wish the Minister well in his portfolio and I hope he will tackle this issue.
Farmers are busy people and do not want to be out on the streets of Dublin, but that is where they are today in their many thousands. I met them earlier. They are disciplined, always well behaved and have served this country well. They do not need this kind of unfair treatment.
It is important to emphasise that we cannot fix prices.
I accept that.
We cannot fix margins either. We can examine ways for primary producers to negotiate collectively to get better prices for their products. We must balance the need for primary producers to get a fair price for their products that reflects the cost of production — the poultry and pig sectors are under particular pressure because of the price of grain and feed — with the need for Irish food to be produced in a way that is competitive with anywhere else in Europe. We are uniquely exposed to export markets and must sell the majority of our produce outside Ireland. The issue of margins relates to negotiating power. This is one matter that will be considered by the draft fair trade Bill.
