Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No one here is asking the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland to engage in price fixing. We are suggesting that if the industry offered a premium price, farmers could buy into that or sign into it. A similar approach is taken at the moment in respect of the price of milk. A certain amount of it is offered. Why is this industry not being similarly innovative?

Ms Westbrook said we need larger farms to get involved in organic farming. I have gone through the figures for every county on my iPad. The average single farm payment is made in respect of a farm of 32 ha. The county with the largest average farm size, according to the figures for the single farm payment scheme, has an average farm size of 47 ha. I do not know how Ms Westbrook expects bigger farms to solve this problem. The smaller farms have walked away from organic farming for the reasons on which we agreed earlier. This is a problem. One thing I mentioned earlier has not been addressed. Farmers have spoken to me about the pricing of the licensing bodies in the organic sector. It seems to be a big problem.