Professor Gerry Boyle:

I thank the Deputies and Senator Paul Daly for their questions and observations.

One point concerned what would happen next winter taking account of fodder stocks which I believe Mr. Keane mentioned in his presentation. Our plan is to conduct a fodder census on 1 July and possibly 1 September if we need to repeat it.

I agree with some of the comments made, in particular those made by Senator Paul Daly. All of us involved in the business tend to look at growing conditions. We all try to anticipate weather conditions, although we are not very successful at it. It is difficult to do, but we always live in hope things will improve. In so far as weather information was available which we mined as best we could, we are fairly happy the assessment we made at different times of the year - on a regular basis - was as good as it could have been. However, what we did not have an adequate handle on was the actual stocks of fodder on farms. I advise Senator Paul Daly that it is certainly a lesson we have learned. I hope individual farmers have learned, as have we, that we need to get a handle on that aspect in order to plan for the future because it is a serious imponderable.

To respond to some of the specific queries raised, I agree with Deputy Willie Penrose on the advice of Mr. Myles Rath. Dr. Siobhán Kavanagh is more up to date on these matters than I am. The issue of climate change was raised. I am an ex officiomember of the Climate Change Advisory Council. I have asked the experts sitting around that table to advise us on the issue, which is one to which the committee might want to return. There is no consensus among the scientists on the way we in Ireland are experiencing climate change on a factual basis. We all have our views on the matter. We can observe extreme events and a couple of years of heavy rainfall in the winter and the spring, but this is an issue we will have to examine closely Until we get a firm handle on it, we will not be able to move to the next stage of assessing what it means for the farming system, turnout dates, fodder reserves, etc. That is a critical point.

I strongly agree with Deputy Willie Penrose on the farm management issue. It is a farm management problem. Ultimately, each farmer has to make his or her own decision on stock numbers relative to feed capacity. I can speak for myself in a different context. At times we can take the odd risk, particularly in a good year. We can say the next one will have to be as good, or if it is a bad year behind us, that the next one cannot be as bad. Unfortunately, such wishful thinking is not adequate for any of us. It goes back to the basic point that every farmer needs to engage in adequate budgeting and we will be there to help them in that regard.

I take on board Deputy Kevin O'Keeffe's point about fodder reserves. As everyone here has attested to or most others have said, having an eight-week reserve is not possible this year. Of course, it is not. That is the target in a normal winter. One could disagree with it, but that is the rule of thumb we are using. As it transpired after the fact - we do not have full evidence on this but are looking into it - unfortunately, many farmers, probably those who recently expanded their farms, as well as those in the more commercial farming region, did not have adequate fodder supplies. They were nowhere near having an eight-week reserve.

A specific question was raised about PastureBase Ireland. It is a hugely important tool. We believe it will be extremely valuable for the future. It is a slow burner in terms of the uptake. Approximately 2,000 farmers, mainly dairy farmers, are using it, but that is nowhere near the number I would like it to be. We have made a substantial investment in the system. It is a very useful tool that provides us with growing information across the country. It is a national service. We provide the information, just like a weather forecast, every day on our website which anyone can check it. However, the real benefit will be gained on individual farms by farmers who follow the system. It is not easy; I would not say it is an effortless system., as it is not. It requires considerable skill for a farmer to be able to use it, but there is a pay-off economically in maximising grass utilisation, but, as we now know, there is also a pay-off in managing a fodder reserve. A modification we are making to the PastureBase Ireland tool is the inclusion of fodder conservation and budgeting as part of the package.

Both Deputy Willie Penrose and Senator Paul Daly raised the issue of the prediction of the crisis and whether Teagasc had been somewhat conservative in calling the fodder crisis that developed. Certainly, as I said, our emphasis on understanding the actual fodder reserves on farms was insufficient. Understanding them would have made a big difference. We were following the prevailing weather conditions at which we were looking very carefully from last August. We instigated the internal committee in August and I had regular reports, virtually every week, on my desk.

There is talk about stock numbers. Nationally, we have lower cattle numbers now compared to the peak at the end of the 1990s, but it is not a national problem. There were difficulties nationally in getting fodder from areas where there was a surplus to areas in which there was a deficit. Some small amounts of imports helped. Nationally, there was not a problem, but the fodder was not in the right place. That was the issue. We all know that we are understocked nationally. The problem is on specific farms. Some farms have expanded rapidly. We have had extraordinary growth on dairy farms during the past three years, as the Chairman will be aware. That is a positive development, but, as someone said, the eye was taken off the ball in matching growth in the numbers of animals on individual farms with the growth in the fodder available. If budgets had been made, it would have been anticipated. It is a basic point for a farmer to know precisely the amount of fodder he or she is carrying into the winter relative to the number of animals he or she has, but with expansion, I can understand how matters could get out of kilter for some farmers. They may have intended to cull cows but they did not do it for one reason or another and carried on with the same numbers. Perhaps they had more heifers than they had anticipated and neglected to make adequate provision. We have to go back to basics and recognise that farmers cannot carry more stock than for the number for which they have feed.

It is not prudent from an economic, an animal welfare or an environmental point of view. That is one of the basic messages. I agree that eight weeks is going to be very difficult. Deputy Cahill made that point. I do not disagree with him. However, he also made the point that there is an opportunity here. I have been saying for a number of years that we have a very serious problem in our tillage sector. I do not think it is widely or sufficiently appreciated. However, this is an opportunity. There is no doubt about that. Our assessment is that it is going to require contractual arrangements. It cannot be expected that a tillage farmer will grow fodder without getting a guaranteed price for doing so. It just will not happen.

That is more difficult to deliver than not. A dairy farmer will look at a tillage farmer and probably say that he is in the same position. Both have to take risks on price. The dairy farmer might ask why he would have to enter into a contract. It will not happen, however, except on that basis. I consider the establishment of contracts that can be enforced as important infrastructural development. We have developed a template and we agree that there is an opportunity here for farmers to get together and, in particular, for dairy farmers to contract.

I appreciate the comments made by Deputy Martin Kenny regarding my ICOS colleagues. This has been a difficult winter for every adviser working with farmers on the ground. There is doubt that people have been under stress. We have found that it was nearly as important to deal with the stress situation as it was with the technical deficits that some farmers were achieving. I was heartened by the way farmers responded. The reserve that we established was a kind of a neutral ground for farmers to offer fodder for exchange and for people to lay out their preferences. It was a tremendous community effort. There were, of course, commercial transactions but there was also a very strong community response. That will not happen year in and year out. There is no question of that.

The focus on input costs was also raised by Deputy Martin Kenny. Our message is always that money is a scarce resource and that people should minimise input costs. Farmers, millers and so on will always tend to go for the same quality but at a lower price. It has to be the same quality on a like-for-like basis. That is perfectly understandable. We would all do the same. We are not going to pay over the odds for diesel or petrol in our cars. None of us is any different. I do take the point - and it is something we have said repeatedly - that our grain sector needs support now. It is very dependent on direct payments. There have been several bad harvests. It is not within our remit but I also agree strongly on the point about the Origin Green label. I have said that publicly before.

There has been a certain pressure on dairy expansion. An expansionary situation is a very dynamic one and it is very easy to cut corners. We have always said to farmers that they have to put efficiency before expansion. It is the less risky strategy. Young farmers in particular have massive ambition to grow their herds. That is understandable. We always tell them to do their farm plans, pause and then ask where they are relative to their peers in the context of efficiency. It is a far less risky strategy to plan for what can be managed.

I take Senator Paul Daly's point on what we might have done differently. The main lesson for me is to focus on the fodder storage and to determine and assess whether that is adequate. Looking at the prevailing climatic conditions and the data, it was - if the Chair will forgive the pun - an extraordinarily perfect storm. Right up to the middle of March, grass growth was on par with last year. The conditions on the ground were very poor but grass was growing. Then, over a relatively short period, we went into a meltdown situation. I am not sure that anyone can predict that. I return to my earlier point that we have to understand - and farmers need to understand - what fodder is available on the ground relative to their stock. I agree that is difficult. We are sticking with the eight weeks at the moment as a prudent guideline but we cannot be definitive about that.

On Deputy Deering's point, there are lessons for all of us. I do not think that we should waste an opportunity. An important point was made in respect of Food Wise. We cannot grow one sector of agriculture without it being interdependent on others. That is a sophisticated and complex relationship. As I was listening to the discussion, it was very obvious that a sector cannot be grown without there being adequate fodder. That means dairy farmers are going to be more and more dependent on others to produce fodder and to contract to rear cattle. That will enable other sectors to generate good stable incomes, which is a positive.

I make the same point about the environment. Dairy farmers are now dependent on people growing trees. That is an example of the complex interdependency we are now facing. As we think about this, perhaps those interdependencies might need to be fleshed out much more in the future. I think I have answered most of the questions. Perhaps Dr. Kavanagh might come in on some of the points I missed.