Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their contributions. What strikes me is that I disagree with very little of what they have put forward to the committee.

On the issue that farmers have put in so much and that Harvest 2020 is about food production to feed the world and so on, the people I see making the most out of that are not farmers but corporations, processors and everyone else. What concrete proposals do the witnesses have that can be implemented to reverse that to ensure fair play for primary producers and that primary producers can see a future in farming? That is one of the problems I come across, and I was conscious of that when the Macra na Feirme witnesses were before the committee. All my life older farmers have told me that whatever else I do, I should get a good job and not even think about farming.

They are still saying that. That is one of the difficulties we face. We have to create a sense of a future in it. I met a young fellow a week ago who had spent two years in Australia. He said the difference between Australia and here is that there everyone had a sense of a future. People were looking to what they would do in two or three years’ time. When he came home there was a sense that very little was happening. We have not got past the doom and gloom. The agriculture sector is very much in that frame of mind. How can we guarantee that the primary producers will actually make money in the future? The money that buys land is never made from land. That is one of our problems. Our agriculture sector has to make enough money to expand and grow. At present it does not. Has the ICSA proposals to change that?