Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Food Harvest 2020 strategy is crucial to the agri-food industry in general and to increasing our exports. The targets contained in it are achievable. The Minister is on record as saying at this committee and in the Seanad that they are not only achievable but surpassable, and I agree with that view. Deputy Ó Cuív referred to this point but I would go further and ask why there should be a disparity between one group of farmers, be they young or old, simply because they live on marginal or poor-quality land, and another group of farmers who have large land holdings and the support of a large single farm payment and are in a position to rent land to farmers with smaller holdings who are not in a financial position to rent the land, thereby increasing their stocking rates and levels of production of lambs, sheep or cattle. Would Mr. Moran agree with that? Is that creating a disparity between farmers or ripples in the market? Does the Department agree it is an issue? It is an issue on the ground and I would be surprised if the Department has not picked it up.

At Carndonagh livestock mart in Donegal last week, farmers who engage in fattening lambs bought 600 lambs produced locally from small hill farmers with marginal land. Would Mr. Moran agree that those small farmers were playing a role in fulfilling the objectives of Food Harvest 2020? Had those lambs not been available in north Donegal - the same would be the case in the west where there is marginal land - the objectives of Food Harvest 2020 could not be met. The CAP budget is about more than agriculture alone; it is about a rural way of life. It is about keeping people in rural Ireland. If we are to sign up to that philosophy, will Mr. Moran agree that it is important that small farm holdings be supported? If Ireland has come up with the proposals for younger farmers to get a 25% top-up, why would we make the advantages pertaining to the young farmer scheme in the CAP budget exclusively available to young farmers who can afford to develop their agricultural holdings or are further incentivised by large single farm payments? Small farmers in counties with low single farm payments are at a considerable disadvantage in increasing their stock and buying or renting land. That is not right. Why should a farmer with a single farm payment of €300 per hectare rent or buy land around a farmer with a single farm payment of €50 per hectare simply because that farmer is not able to rent or buy the land that is down the road from his farm? That is not right. We have to level the playing field if we are to achieve the objectives of Food Harvest 2020. Will Mr. Moran agree that everyone should be on the field working together rather than pulling against each other? Will such disparity, with farmers working against each other, not endanger our reaching the Food Harvest 2020 targets?