Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate. I thank the Ministers for what they have done so far regarding the weather crisis. Even though we have had a few dry bright days, the damage that has been done by the long wet spell will not disappear over a few days of sunshine. Before I left home this morning, I walked to the paddocks for the cows. The grass that is there for the second rotation is virtually non-existent. This is for a number of reasons. One is the damage done by the cows the first time around. The second is that no chemical nitrogen was spread. All of that is going to have a serious impact on grass production for the next couple of weeks.

When it started a few years ago, the war in Ukraine gave Europe a shiver up its spine as regards food security. This weather event should do the same. We have taken food security for granted for far too long. Our agrifood industry is the backbone of our rural economy. Our dairy industry, which some people would like to target and decimate, is most definitely the driving force of rural Ireland. We see a significant fall in milk production this spring. That will have an impact on processors and their ability to pay a good price for milk. That will cause problems for farmers' bottom lines in 2024.

The Minister announced €100 a hectare for tillage farmers. That is very welcome. We are in the last week of April and there is still a lot of ground to be sown. I ask him to keep an eye on how tillage farmers are progressing over the year and on how profitable the sector will be in 2024. If yields are significantly down due to the late sowing, I would ask the Minister to examine whether further support could be given as we move into the back end of the year. Tillage farmers had a very bad year last year. They had bad weather, bad prices and bad yields. It was a perfect storm causing a crisis in tillage farming. I urge the Minister to monitor the situation and see whether further supports are needed as the year progresses.

Some tillage farmers are deciding whether to grow crops for livestock farmers. We should examine whether an encouragement could be offered to make it more viable to grow maize or beet for that purpose. It is going to be difficult to achieve a positive balance as regards fodder for 2024. At this stage of the year, farmers should be walking the fields to decide when to cut silage. Early cut silage should be cut in the next ten days to a fortnight. The reality is that a lot of that land has not even had chemical nitrogen applied to it yet. I was driving around my constituency yesterday evening and grass was being cut off a lot of land so that farmers could get a fresh start on establishing the main silage crop.

We are getting near to 1 May. Lads are cutting off and bagging the stale grass on fields to try to get fresh regrowth that will get slurry and chemical nitrogen. An awful lot will depend on the weather we get in the next six to eight weeks. That will determine what kind of silage or store of fodder will be there for the winter of 2024-25.

A three-week suspension of farm inspections was given during the worst of the weather. I ask the Minister to consider the farmers who were inspected over the previous three to four weeks and, for various reasons, might have suffered penalties. For example, a farmer contacted me who had farmyard manure after he cleaned out his calving pens. In springtime, he would normally take that to a field where it could be legally left for spreading later in the year. Whether it was for reseed or whatever, it would be spread later. Due to the weather conditions, he just could not get out of the yard. The manure was left in a heap in some corner of the yard. There are various reasons that happens. Despite the pressure that was on farms, where stock that would normally be out grazing were all still indoors, inspections happened in the previous three to four weeks and fines were imposed. I ask for that to be re-examined. I would go so far as to say there should be an amnesty for those farmers. They should definitely get a reinspection. Due to things that were completely outside their control, including weather-related reasons and the pure physical and mental pressure on them, farmers suffered fines during that period. I ask for those fines to be re-examined.

The date for the reduction in protein feeding for dairy cows is another issue. With the banding and stocking rates, etc., the recalculation of protein feed is most welcome. However, this year, with cows being indoors an awful lot longer, cows will have to be kept on a higher level of protein for longer. I ask the Minister for a 1 May cut-off for that. This is so that the summer regime, as we call it, for protein feeding will start cleanly from 1 May. I also ask for that calculation to be kept simple. We hear talk that what was fed in the wintertime and summer will be included in the calculation of the reduction in protein that will be used for the reduction in the organic stocking level for cows. At present, because of the amount of paperwork, farmers are getting completely frustrated with the bureaucracy that is there. I ask that the protein calculation, and the allowance that will be there for feeding a low-level protein during the summer months, be kept simple and kept on the calendar year. All these calculations and sums are being done, but farmers are wondering whether they will get X, Y or Z allowance. The bureaucracy attached to derogation at the moment is becoming increasingly frustrating.

Many farmers are at a low stocking intensity. In a year when there will be pressure on building up fodder stocks, I would like the Minister to consider that farmers on a low stocking rate are limited in the amount of chemical nitrogen they can spread. If they commit to growing extra silage for sale, they could be given a derogation to allow them to spread more chemical nitrogen. This could work very well in increasing our supplies of hay and silage in 2024. It is something that should be looked at. Farmers would greatly welcome it. Farmers on low stocking levels, under 130%, etc., are very limited in the amount of chemical nitrogen they can spread. In a year, that option should be given. All low-intensity farmers would not be interested in growing extra silage, but some might be interested in doing it for sale to other farmers, who believe they will be short of fodder. I ask the Minister to consider that.

To go back to tillage, the other issue in this back end is that of straw incorporation. Straw has been non-existent for the past month or six weeks. We are importing straw from the UK at present. The payment for tillage farmers should most definitely be maintained. Even if some farmyard manure had to make its way back onto tillage farms, the intent of that scheme should be kept in place. This year, with the pressure that will be on fodder supplies, we have to re-examine that incorporation scheme and keep the payment there for tillage farmers. If there were some way they could get organic manure back onto their land and still have their straw for sale, it has to be examined.

One thing that has to be learned from this winter is that there is a very significant need for slurry storage on all farms. I will make a couple of points. Any of us who are in farming know that you cannot have enough slurry storage. One of things that put real mental and physical strain on farmers this year, when normally they had no bother going out to spread slurry and do so when the nutrients would be well taken up by the land, was the fact that the land was just untraversable. That went on all spring. It put huge pressure on farmers mentally and physically. Although extra grants for slurry storage were announced under the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, in last year's budget, I ask the Minister to go back to examine that further to see if it can be increased even more for farmers. Slurry storage is a key weapon in our armoury to win the battle for water quality. This winter really brought that home to us.

On farm investments and VAT, Revenue has changed its interpretation of what is VAT rebatable. I brought this up at parliamentary party level on a couple of occasions. We have been constantly pressing the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, on it. We are at last making progress with Revenue. My understanding is that it is looking at it again and committing to reverting to what was there for the previous 50 years. We need to make it clear for farmers, who are investing in infrastructure on their farms, that the VAT rebate that was in place heretofore for whatever they were doing will be in place again. This VAT issue was first brought to my attention 12 months ago. The VAT rebate for slurry bags was the first thing Revenue took away. Slurry bags are used by small- to medium-sized farmers as a lagoon for holding slurry. Revenue maintained those slurry bags could be moved to another location. Anyone who has ever worked with slurry will know that to move something that holds 100,000 gallons of slurry to another location might be possible on paper, but would be a complete non-runner physically. Throughout the past 12 months, Revenue has increased the number of items it has taken away from farmers on which they are able to reclaim VAT. I welcome the fact Revenue has gone back to the drawing board on this. We need clarity on it because constant investment in farmyard infrastructure is essential. This winter most definitely underlined that for all farmers. The Minister will be in Brussels fighting hard to maintain our derogation as we move into 2025. He will be the only minister out there looking for a derogation. If we can show that we are investing very significantly in slurry storage on farms, it will be to our benefit.

I welcome all the Government has done to help farmers through this crisis. It was an extremely long, hard and wet winter. It put farmers under huge physical pressure as well as financial pressure. As we go through 2024, I know the Minister will not be found wanting, if other situations arise due to this winter whereby farmers will need extra support.

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