Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and welcome the witnesses. It is always good to discuss the future of agriculture rather than look back. I think it is noteworthy that a whole generation lost out because of the milk quota that was introduced in 1983, me being one of them. I grew up on a dairy farm where expansion was not possible.

The witnesses mentioned a few things and I will rattle through them very quickly. The debt on farms has been low to date and the witnesses have said this is essential going ahead. I agree but I do not like the surge in debt. Sweating the asset has been mentioned. That is a very funny way for a business to chug ahead, because it exposes it to cashflow difficulties at certain times and it is the very time that a business is under pressure that the market works against it. I think we should be looking at sustainable investment.

Basic financial management has been mentioned and farmers should be made aware of it, if nothing else. I feel that Teagasc has a role in this. So has the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. E-monitors are important, certainly, but so is sage management and issuing invoices. Farmers essentially produce milk, and they are excellent at doing so, but they never write an invoice. We need to move towards a situation in which they understand how to do this and treat it as a business. Also, farmers tend to do their book work at night. They tend to try to do it with their wives or whoever is there. It is done haphazardly. If farmers were asked to do book work in the busy calving season they would say, "Don't be annoying me." Businesses cannot work that way. I suggest that we try to get the message out that farmers need to start employing people who sit in front of a computer and do it properly. I know in my case I could not face a computer so we got somebody to do it. When one looks at the cost of those personnel - I will just pick a figure of €12 per hour - that would be well offset by the fines that would be paid out if there was an audit. That needs to be made clear. There are huge resources of labour in the countryside. Many people who are rearing families are free from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. They will work part time and they are fantastic. They will get the work done consistently. We are not getting that out there.

I will not dwell too long on it. The milk price shown here is 39 cent per litre, giving a net profit of 16.4 cent, with the top 10% earning milk prices of 40.8 cent , a net profit of 23 cent. There is not a huge difference in the price they get for milk - which is surprising, because I thought with the butterfats and proteins there would be - but there is a huge difference in their profit. I am not sure what year this pertains to; is it 2014?