Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think the witnesses for coming before the committee. This is one of the days where the gift of bi-location would be quite handy.

The witnesses said survey forms, in one form or another, for 20,000 herds have been sent in and samples have been returned for 19,000 herds. I understand that initially about 27,000 filled out the form. What is the latest date this year for sending in data in order that farmers can get paid before Christmas? If farmers do not submit data for this year, does this mean they are out of the scheme or not? Can they join at any stage for the five years of the scheme and can the scheme run for five years from that date? Of the 7,000 who have not yet submitted data, do the witnesses know whether there is any correlation between them and herd size? Does the figure involve predominantly large, small or medium-sized herds?

I tabled two parliamentary questions to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and to say that I did not get very clear answers is putting it mildly. I asked him if a person who buys a five-star bull could find that in subsequent years the star rating of the same animal was reduced and if he would make a statement on the matter. He told me that it could reduce, but if a bull was in a five-star category it would remain so. My second question asked him if there was any guarantee that bulls currently rated star five on AI catalogues would retain their star rating in the future, the effect it could have on farmers if it was subsequently found that AI bulls had been overrated and if he would make a statement on the matter.

The Minister did not really address the issue at all. I will try to clarify for the officials the point I was trying to make. I listened to an expert on the subject recently in a southern county. I went all the way down to listen to him. He said that the reliability of many of the AI bulls in terms of the star rating was actually rather low. For example, I could go to the catalogue and decide on a five-star bull. Then my 50 cows could produce 50 calves. The same would apply if it were 20 cows or ten or whatever. However, I could easily find out two or three years later that I had actually mated the cows to a one-star or two-star bull. It does not matter, except that the progeny, accordingly, would not be what I had thought they would be. It would have been as if I had got a one-star or two-star rated bull. In fact, the speaker was recommending that farmers should not use only one AI bull and that they should reduce their risk. For example, if a farmer had ten cows he could use five bulls and mate two cows per bull to insure against one or more of them proving to be a gliogar. I am not sure whether the witnesses know what a gliogar is - it is a term for a rotten egg in the Irish language. Anyway, if a bull proved to be something other than what it was meant to be, then I would not have bought into it.

The Department seems to be concerned about the AI bull, but that would not be on my register as a farmer. The progeny of the AI bull would be my problem. Four or five years later I could find myself with a major pain in my head, having thought I had done everything correctly. In fact, I could be left with progeny that do not match the specification of what I bought. In that case I would face a severe penalty, if I understand the system correctly. If a farmer was not knowledgeable beyond my understanding of genomics, he might not pay much heed to it.

I am actually in favour of genomics. I like the concept and I believe in science. I believe that over time, once we have enough data collected to start rating things on past performance and so on, we will have a useful tool. However, I think we are rushing our fences in demanding that farmers have X or Y number of four-star or five-star animals in the coming years. To my mind, that is how everything works according to the plan of the Department. I accept the basic science, but I think there are many variables in it. If I accept what Department officials are saying in terms of output, then obviously farmers are going to move toward the four-star or five-star bulls over time for good reason, since the economic return on the market is going to entice them, just as the economic return from the factories moved farmers towards the confirmation of the animal in the factory or whatever the factories wanted. When this data becomes available, it will move people. However, the problem is not that people will not want to move. The problem is the unintended consequences, since the data they are being given at the moment may be unreliable. This particularly relates to people who use AI bulls or people using what are now rated as five-star stock bulls but which may subsequently turn out to be one-star bulls. The original bull is only one animal, but the fact that his progeny might not have the traits he was meant to deliver as a five-star bull could have major consequences for the herd.

Does the system include some type of in-built guarantee for farmers who act in good faith, based on the information given to them, and subsequently find that this information was less than optimum and a reclassification was required, specifically in respect of the bull - the paternal side is likely to produce a large number of progeny - where it fails to live up to its record and produces a large number of sub-optimal cattle?