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

I thank the farming organisations for their presentations. This is a critical issue for family farms across the country, particularly those in areas where dairy and tillage farming is not an option. In County Leitrim there are five marts, at which, in the main, weanlings are sold to those with good land on which they can be fattened and finished. There has been much talk about producer groups. As many suckler cow farmers do not have the capacity to finish an animal, they have to sell it to another, which is a backward step that affects processors and everyone else involved.

I take Mr. Kinsella's point which is well made that farm payments and supports and various income streams such as the CAP play a vital part in keeping the family farm alive. If that is what we are about - protecting that model - we must step back. It is true of anywhere in the world that as economies develop and grow and countries become more affluent, every other sector starts to make more money and the cost of living increases but farming stays behind. As it stays behind and the cost of living increases, agriculture increasingly becomes less important in every economy as it develops and grows. The numbers working in agriculture will fall and the level of income, compared with the cost of living, will decline. The CAP is about protecting the model of farming.

We spoke about looking across Europe and how there was a milk price index and asked whether we could have a beef price index. I argue that we should not compare prices in Europe only, that we should say we have a different product from that anywhere else in the world because it is grass fed on the family farm which makes it unique. We have to find a way to market it properly to get the maximum price for it. The obstacle is the processors and the supermarkets do not want this. They want to keep it the same as it is everywhere else in the world such that if beef becomes scarce in Ireland, they will be able to buy it elsewhere and call it Irish beef. We will not pretend that they are not doing so already because, of course, they are. Nor will we pretend that when an animal is graded, if there is an order to be filled, the grade matters; the boxes will be taken out and the order filled. The person who goes into the supermarket does not know the grade of beef they are buying. It is all bull to screw the farmer.

The age limit is another issue that really annoys me. It is said the animal must be under 30 months. We talk about this unique, grass-fed, natural product, yet we put an age limit on it. It flies in the face of everything we are supposed to be trying to develop and evolve.

The issue is really land use. To an extent the farmer is being paid by way of farm payments for being a custodian of the land. The other side is efficient production and how much a farmer can produce and what price he or she can get for it. We must try to establish the balance between them. We have a beef forum that does not work. Most of the farming organisations have walked away from it and we must ask why. To be fair to him, the Minister will tell us that he is an honest broker who is trying to solve everyone's problems, which is fine, but, ultimately, a huge amount of taxpayers' money is being put into finding markets, while the primary producers whom the State and we, as a society, should look after most are the ones who get the least out of it.

The big questions about monopolies, the unique product we produce in Ireland and how we can overcome all of these issues bring us back to the fundamental problem. Market economies work very well, but they have to have rules. The Government must take a firm hand and go into the market from time to time to ensure people play by the rules, but that is not happening. I take the point that sometimes the case has to be proved, as we all know, but there is no willingness to examine what is happening. I am not saying there is no willingness on the part of the farming organisations - I am sure there is - but while everyone is standing back and pointing to all of the problems, nobody is prepared to say what the solutions are. If we must break eggs, we will have to break them, but people do not seem to want to do this; they are just tip-toing around the issues. It seems the industry and the processors are so important that we cannot really challenge them.

People are fearful about Brexit. It was said we could be out of the British market because of it. We will not be, but huge tariffs will be imposed on our products. If they are, how will we get around them? Some beef processors are considering moving their processing operations to England and bringing cattle across. Many of the workers they employ in their factories are transient. Foreign labour is brought in at very low prices. As long as the industry continues to move in that direction, where every part of it is about low costs and efficiency, we will have a problem. We must discuss where it might operate at lower intensity levels and achieve higher values. If we insist on this happening, we can make progress. The difficulty arises because no one is prepared to insist on it happening. The factories are and always have been in the driving seat and it seems that is going to continue to be the case because there is no real challenge to them. The State has a role to play in that regard. Therefore, the Minister must step in. Establishing the beef forum may have been a good idea, but it has not worked and we must ask serious questions about why it has not.

It was observed that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission wanted a political direction on what it should do. If we, as a committee, have a role to play, we are up for it. If we bring representatives of the commission before the committee, we should tell it what we want it to do. Ultimately, we must try to ensure the primary producers will receive a proper payment. They are the ones who need to be properly looked after in all this.

I do not know if greater transparency on prices and what the system does would make any difference. I do not think knowing exactly what everyone is getting for everything would change anything. As a country, we have to make a choice. Are we going to seek to achieve higher value and insist on ensuring proper prices or will we allow those with a monopoly to continue as they are in an open market, whereby if prices here are much the same as those in the rest of Europe, that is good enough? I do not think we should stand for that; rather, we should be saying our product is better, that our prices should be better and that we should be able to market our product better. There will be questions to be asked if we are unable to do this.