Mr. Martin Keane:

Let me refer to some of the points made by Deputy Penrose on farm management. He is accurate enough in the assessment there is room for some improvement in farm management, but significant progress has been made in recent years. The Deputy said we have too much ruminant stock. The bovine number for 2017 was 6.6 million. It is worth noting that the bovine number in 1996 - 20 years ago - was 7.4 million. The sheep numbers were 8.9 million in 1992 and 3.9 million in 2017. There was a reduction of over 60%. Therefore, to say there is a considerable amount of extra stock is an invalid assessment. There might be extra stock in some places but, overall, from 2013 to 2017, the bovine numbers have gone up by 5.7% and production has gone up 30%. Farm management practices and all that goes with them have improved immensely over the period. We are now getting much more return from the resources that exist.

There is universal agreement here on the necessity to create some headroom. It is a matter of how we go about that. Deputy Cahill, before he left, made some very valid observations on the use of tillage ground. I am certainly not an expert on tillage and do not purport to be. The people to my right are much more qualified to speak on that. The sowing of crops that are suited to this time of the year could help, assuming there is a contractual arrangement between the tillage farmer and the likely user of the product, thereby giving room.

The use of catch crops might play a role later in the summer. A tillage farmer who was sowing corn last week said to me that there is a certain risk but all is not lost if the overall season, and not just the sowing date, turns out to be late. I refer to where crops do not come in too quickly. This comment was from a very substantial grain grower, which shows that there is some room. Certainly, we will not make up all the deficit. I welcome the fact that there will be an assessment at two points in time, in the summer and early autumn, to establish the facts and let us know exactly what will be required for what would be expected to be normal.

To say that people could predict and have management practices in place to deal with the extraordinary challenges of the past six or eight weeks would be stretching it. No matter how good one is, one cannot predict that it will be -4° Celsius or -5° Celsius on Easter Sunday.

I echo exactly what Professor Boyle said when he referred to climate change and the fact that we need to establish much more scientific evidence. It is not a matter of questioning whether climate change is happening but of determining the immediate effect. We cannot plan for what we cannot measure. Right now, no one is able to tell us exactly what is involved other than that we might have a particular kind of climate in 50 years' time. A more immediate assessment is required. Extraordinary events seem to be more frequent. Met Éireann would not exactly say that what happened recently is directly linked to climate change because we have always had extraordinary events. The years 1984 and 1985 were extraordinarily challenging. It could be a little over-simplistic to look at this solely in terms of climate change.

Deputy Martin Kenny is very well informed. I would not disagree with anything he said. The advice to feed concentrate and stretch fodder and roughage was very important. To a degree, that advice was followed. What seemed to have happened in the latter part of the spring, however, was related to the availability of fodder from the south, where short winters are normally expected. Deputy O'Keeffe referred to this. Extraordinary weather events from mid-March onwards took farmers in the south by surprise to a great degree. They would normally be in a relatively comfortable position. Some people exported fodder north and west and then found themselves short later on.

It may not be that it did not exist. That made the position worse.

Deputy Kenny spoke about land drainage. Drainage of any land used for agricultural production, as distinct from other types of production, should be encouraged. The point was made about mills having difficulty. There were pinch points. It is not that the product was not available internationally but delivery dates might have been tight. Mills might have experienced a certain tightness in the delivery of some of their raw materials.

Keeping costs down was mentioned. All of us, the co-ops included, would echo that point. Keeping costs down and ignoring the reality is a very different thing. One has to farm the circumstances. One cannot farm the book. One has to farm the circumstances that present. In a difficult time, one has to adjust one's strategy. It does not mean that one flitters money away but one has to adjust to the reality and ensure that keeping costs down in the short term may not be the right answer. One might need to take a longer term view.

The Chairman referenced the issue of expansion only. We have to get better before we get bigger. The Chairman is absolutely on the money. We have to ensure people do not just expand because they can. They have to be sure they are optimising efficiency and their returns. Huge work has been done in this area. Reference was made to Food Wise 2025. We have a huge opportunity as a country. The consumption of dairy products is increasing by 1.5% to 2% globally. Globalisation is here and we are seen as a very efficient producer of food. We have to protect that image. Reference was made to Origin Green. It is absolutely essential that no damage is done in any way to our image or our green image. The fact that 85% or 90% of our production is from grass is important. That does not mean there will not be the odd blip for a month here or there. We would not want to panic and lose all sense that we have a very natural product that we are exporting to a huge number of countries. We have to congratulate Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia for the work they do in helping to promote Irish products. They need to stick with us as an industry and ensure we have people on the ground in emerging markets to bring as much of the product to full value as we possibly can. We need to get full value and at the same time keep our costs to a minimum.

Senator Paul Daly asked whether more could have been done earlier. The committee might have thought I would say this anyway as I represent the co-op industry. A very simple measure around a voucher system on buffer-type feed would have had a role to play. I could not disagree on that. The evidence was there that there was a difficulty facing into the winter. No one could have predicted how severe it turned out to be and that we would arrive at a situation where on 1 May, we see it out in the sun and are not used to it.

The co-ops and credit were mentioned. It will take a number of months before the full extent of this will fully materialise. My anecdotal evidence is that the increased debtor books on co-ops is there. I should not speak for the banks but I imagine they would say the overdraft facilities look okay right now and there is not a big increase. I am sure they would say that because I have heard it said before. I would not be totally surprised by that because the first port of call for a farmer for credit is the co-ops rather than the financial institutions. I would call on them, as the year progresses, to show forbearance particularly in the area of extending overdraft facilities because it will be necessary. As the Chairman said earlier, the November period will be a challenge in light of the fact that 2017 was a good year for price and yield and people will be facing into big tax commitments, all of which will have to be discharged. None of us is here to argue against that.

I refer to what I said earlier. We missed an opportunity in the past two years - Deputy Scanlon referenced this - to have some form of income deferral. If we had done that in the past two years, the result may not have materialised too much in 2016. However, in 2017 if the opportunity had been there and if from a cashflow perspective farmers had deferred a proportion of their receipts, they would be in a better position now facing into the November period to deal with their tax liabilities. Credit and short-term credit will manifest as an issue. The banks have a role to play. We saw earlier today the launch of the MilkFlex fund. It goes back to an earlier point about infrastructural development that is required. I think Deputy Cahill mentioned the need for infrastructural development before he left. We will call for more imaginative funding mechanisms such as the MilkFlex fund. It will only satisfy some of the demand but it is very innovative. The repayments fluctuate with the milk price. It is a unique tool and we welcome it. The banks have a role to play and they have to be more flexible around short-term credit. The cost of credit is always an issue. That is why MilkFlex is there. It is because the cost of credit here is higher than it is for our competitors. It is not for me to go through the exigencies of why that is the case but banks, because of their historical performance, have a necessity to rebuild balance sheets. A certain amount of forbearance might be required on their behalf, as was required by all of us as taxpayers over the past number of years.

The Chairman asked about the lessons to be learned. There are huge lessons to be learned. We have to do things better before we get bigger. We have to plan. The initiative around the fodder and how we fix next year and how we assess where we are before we go into next year is absolutely critical and essential.

From an ICOS perspective, all of our co-operative members will endeavour to afford extended credit terms while at the same time all of the boards involved will have a huge responsibility to protect the balance sheet because a co-operative in a weak position will not be much good into the future. While there will be a facility to help, I do not think we should be burdened with the total responsibility of it ourselves. We have to protect the balance sheets of the business to allow it to continue to grow and develop.

Mr. Flanagan or Mr. Farrell might want to add something.