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

I welcome the witnesses today. In regard to Teagasc and the advice it was giving, I know that in my part of the country people like Tom Coll and Ben Wilkinson were magnificent in assisting and working with farmers. Teagasc gave advice from very early stages when people began to see that a crisis was developing.

When it did not stop raining from the end of August onwards, it was obvious that there was going to be a crisis or at least some element of a problem, that farmers would need to use whatever silage they had and that there would be a problem around feed concentrates. One of the criticisms we have of the Minister is that when he did something about the situation, he did not focus on the feed concentrates. He focused on moving fodder around the State. Most of us thought that this was almost in contradiction to what was being advised on the ground. As a result, we now find a situation in parts of the south and the east where the seven of eight weeks of fodder that was a buffer was sucked up into the north west. When the bad weather continued further into the spring, the crisis was not just in one part of the State but all over the place.

This throws up a problem. We say to farmers to make sure they get enough silage, enough fodder and extra to do for the winter. The truth is that there are always some farmers who buy fodder every year, and in general most farmers are able to work it out adequately. Usually in a parish they know the farmer who has a few extra bales every year and the farmer who is a few short and they work it out among themselves, but this year was particularly bad because most farmers did not get a second cut of silage, especially in the north west, because of the rain and the wet and because they were not able to travel on the land.

I am interested to hear the comments on the potential for drainage schemes, where appropriate, for meadow land and in particular on more marginal land. If that land is drained, at least when there is a break in the weather for a week or ten days, the farmers could get out to cut their silage a little bit later. When spring time comes, the land would soak away a bit quicker and grass would come on a bit earlier. I referred to this type of scheme being introduced where appropriate because there are parts of the country where it would not be appropriate. It would be quite appropriate, however, to have such a drainage scheme in many areas.

Reference was made to the problems with tillage this year. We have had a very late spring and an awful lot of the grain will not be got in. What will happen later on? I understand that some mills are already finding it difficult to source grain and to buy forward because it has not been sown. What will happen next year? This will feed into the next possible problem that we will need to look at down the road.

I am aware that Teagasc advises every farmer, as do the people who work in the dairy co-ops, to focus on their inputs and keep their input costs as low as possible. While farmers are told to keep their input costs as low as possible, there is a difficulty because they rely, as a result, on cheap, imported grain. This has a negative impact on Ireland's tillage sector which cannot compete with these imports. If the tillage crop is not going in because the tillage farmer cannot get the price because he is being advised that the other farmer who buys the grain is being advised to keep his or her inputs as low as possible, obviously this has an impact. There has to be a step back to look at the big picture. It comes down to the issue with regard to all our products that we try to sell throughout the world. Origin Green has a big impact on it, but a large portion of the feed that goes into our dairy and beef sectors and into many other sectors is not Origin Green because it is low-cost imports. This aspect needs to be reassessed and looked at because it will have an impact down the road.

Deputy Penrose referred to stock going up. More than anything else, stock has gone up with the pressure from expansion in the dairy sector, and this has also had an impact on the tillage sector. Many dairy farmers expanded to the extent that this has expanded the sector, and it has caused a difficulty and a shortage of fodder. This has happened even in areas where traditionally they would have been able to meet the fodder demands.

The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, ICOS, performed a great service by importing fodder and stepping up to the mark. The co-ops were there when they were needed, but from our perspective it was unfortunate that we did not have as good or as quick a response from the Minister or the Department to try to resolve the issue faster. If there had to be an intervention and if it had happened at an early stage, then the crisis would not have spread so much as we would not have had as large a problem.

The lesson to be learned from this is that we need to stand back and look at the big picture. We cannot keep expanding without understanding that we must provide for the expansion. We also cannot continue to suggest to farmers that they must keep their inputs at a low cost if it has an impact on another sector of the farming community. We need to look at the bigger picture to come up with solutions that will work for everybody. We are all dependent on one another and each of us in the agrifood sector is dependent on Ireland's reputation around the world for the food we produce. There is an opportunity to ensure that Origin Green means what it says, and if we intend to make it mean what it says, that it will provide a solution for the farmers everywhere.