Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before we go back to the witnesses I must apologise, I had to step out for a while earlier on. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting. I have a few questions on the issue. It is ironic that the sun is shining at the moment and we are talking about fodder, which is the time to plan for the future. The most important point from the last number of months concerns the lessons that we have learned. I have often heard that an opportunity to develop on what mistakes have been learned from the past should never be wasted and it is important that whatever is learned, there must be structures put in place for the future, be it from an advisory point of view or a co-operative point of view. A lot of good work has been done and everybody has to be complimented on that for getting a lot of guys over the hump and some guys have unfortunately still not got over the hump from a farming point of view. In my neck of the woods, I saw two loads of fodder coming through Tullow today. Professor Boyle would know well where I am talking about. That would not be perceived or known to be a difficult area but today I saw two loads of fodder going through the town.

Stocking levels need to be looked at for the future. It is a huge issue. In the past we were talking about getting better before bigger. In the past number of years, rightly or wrongly, we have got bigger before better but I am open to correction on that. That is an issue that needs to be addressed. I ask the witnesses for their opinions on an issue that I raised here before, namely, the idea of Food Wise 2025. Agriculture in general has huge positives but there are very ambitious targets in Food Wise 2025 - creating 25,000 extra jobs and increasing exports by another 50% up to €18 to €19 billion. We also must take into account the cost in all of that, be it from a farming or the costing point of view. Agriculture is resilient but resilience can stretch. This will be a difficult year. In my opinion, it will take a number of years to get over this year. Last year, 2017, was probably the first good year since 2013 and we are probably back to square one now or minus one.

I ask Teagasc what structures it would like to see planning-wise to build up the reserves that were mentioned earlier on? Grass growth has been quite good in the last number of days and it is amazing the amount of time that can be gained and Teagasc will know more about that than me. There appears to be extra stock in the country at the moment that will require extra feeding. How will we get over that balance?

The other issue I will ask about is that a lot of huge bills are outstanding at the moment. They are bigger than they were in 2013 and Revenue bills are coming down the line. The year 2017 was quite good. This is an issue that has not been much discussed and it needs to be factored into the overall planning going forward. Revenue bills are obviously something one cannot get away from and must be paid when they fall due. How will those be planned for?

I refer to the plan for the eight-week reserve and how we could best be doing that. We could be lucky this year, it could be a short winter and a long summer and there could be lots of growth. We could have built up natural reserves but in the event that it is a fairly difficult year, how will we plan for that in the future? Professor Boyle might lead off or before he starts, Deputy O'Keeffe has come in late so I will take a question from him before I go back to Professor Boyle.