Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation. The Minister was before the committee a couple of weeks ago and there was a fair outburst about the position of the beef industry. Unfortunately, there is great despondency about this matter. Farmers just cannot continue with the returns they are getting, so people will begin to vote with their feet and leave the industry. A kill of 40,000 per week is just not sustainable. The mantra previously was that once we went above 30,000 per week, we would be unable to sell that number of cattle profitably. It has been 40,000 per week for two months or more and we are bearing the brunt of that in the returns being received. The only way that can be reduced and our herd retained is through live exports. We have had misfortunes with Turkey whereby that market is virtually closed to us. We hear a great deal about different markets opening up but they will not take a huge volume of cattle. It is essential that we get a significant number of black and white calves out of the country next spring. We must emphasise getting 400,000 to 500,000 Friesian calves out of the country if we are to bring any balance back to the kill. That will take a period of time.

I have a few other observations. We are focusing here on the suckler herd, and I accept it is under pressure, but if we pit farmer against farmer we will go down a slippery slope. This should not be about the suckler herd versus the beef produce coming from the dairy herd. The returns from all systems in beef farming at present are not sustainable, whether it is calf to beef or finishing the weanlings bought in the west of Ireland. Regardless of the system, the returns are unsustainable. The figures for the end price being paid and the cost of producing the beef are not balancing. People are going to get out of winter-finishing and calf-to-beef systems and they will leave suckler farming. We must recognise that all systems are under pressure.

We must also face up to the problem of the Jersey cross and the lack of meat yield from such an animal. Some farmers are trying to offload their Jersey calves, especially through live exports, as something other than what they are. That cannot be allowed to happen. Teagasc has much for which to answer. There is no evaluation of the lack of profit for having Jersey in the progeny. There is the loss in the price of the calf and the loss in the carcass weight for the cow. Many monitor farms run by Teagasc are promoting cross breeds, but there has never been a focus on the negative aspect of income from the beef returns available. Every farm has beef returns, whether from the sale of a calf or that of a culled cow. In my view, that has never been factored into the EBI or the profitability of any system. That must be addressed.

Deputy McConalogue referred to the grid. The grid has not done what it was meant to do and must be re-examined. It definitely will not solve all the ills of the industry. Where the base is set is wrong. It should be set at the old level and there should be bonuses from there up. A huge proportion of the kill is suffering losses on the grid. The only people who have made money from the grid are the beef processors. They are doing that with the quality assurance scheme as well. The number of cattle failing to qualify for quality assurance is substantial, but one never sees that on the package of beef for sale in Sainsbury's in the UK. One will not see whether it is an O-, O= or O+ steer. It will be sold as Irish beef. If one goes into a McDonald's, one sees that it is quality assured beef, but in the vast majority of cases the farmer is not getting any recompense for being in the quality assurance scheme.

We talk about our quality assurance and other schemes and say that we are producing the best beef in the world and that our suckler beef is of great quality. It is of such quality.

Unfortunately, retailers and consumers will take all that from us but will not pay us anything in return. If we set our standards high, the retailers will love it and the consumers will be happy, but unfortunately there is no premium being paid for that. Beef farmers are in a very despondent mood. Direct payments are under pressure. Mercosur is lurking in the background and Brexit is the greatest challenge of all. It is easy to understand why farmers are despondent.

The report is welcome, but I repeat that we should not set farmer against farmer. Our beef industry is not making money for anyone involved in it and we need to resolve that. I accept fully that suckler herds need help if the industry is going to survive. Deputy McConalogue referred to the motion we put down early in the year and the industry must get specialist help. Let us not go down a slippery slope of setting one system of cattle farming against another. No system is making money and it has to change or our beef industry will disappear. The figures in the report about what it contributes to the local economy cannot be overestimated. The contribution of active farmers to a rural area cannot be overestimated.

People are pushing forestry and Deputy Martin Kenny strongly makes the point that the introduction of too much forestry can be terminal for an area. We must be conscious of that when we talk about our beef industry. In large parts of the country, if the beef industry disappears, it will be replaced by trees and, when that happens, the services in those rural communities will also disappear.

Our beef industry is at a crossroads and what is there at the moment cannot continue. No one is going to stay in an industry that is taking hammering after hammering and, as has been said by a number of speakers, the next generation will definitely not go down this route. We discussed, before the meeting commenced in public session, the amount of young farmers entering the industry and if people see the poor returns and the lack of profitability in the different cattle regimes, whether it is calf-to-beef or sucker farming, those potential farmers will say it is not for them. They will take other options with the land and once those other options are taken there is no reversing out of that decision.