Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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Apologies, I was in the Chamber for the budget speech so missed Macra na Feirme's opening statement but I read it and it is very detailed. I thank the witnesses for that. We have spoken about the level, 83%, of fruit and vegetables imported. We should stand on our own two feet much more when it comes to growing fruit and vegetables. We cannot grow everything, but what we can grow, we should. For our fathers and mothers and the generations before them, anything they ate, they grew. That was how it was. We need to go back to some of that to be more self-sufficient than most of us are.

Members of the Food Vision group were in earlier and I asked how worried they were about the sector. One of the professors remarked she was worried about the price the producer is getting. That is the ultimate worry. We can speak of food waste and that is an issue but if the sector is not there, that is just as big an issue.

I want to ask about the agrifood regulator and transparency along the food chain, around cost of production, for example. Do the witnesses see the regulator playing a positive role in the sector? How do they see the price the producer is getting being improved to ensure we keep the growers we have, whose number is very much reduced, and develop and grow the sector to ensure we do not need to import as much as currently?