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

I have been looking at the practices that would be required. The outline refers to fertiliser, feed and time of weaning. It is all the good husbandry and best practice we should see happening on the farm. I assume that advisers will be part of this package. Will the witnesses contract Teagasc or the like to talk to farmers or will they employ advisers to work with farmers to meet these standards and to check that the standards are being met? There will be a cost involved in that regard as well and the farmer somehow or other will pay that cost down the line.

My experience of it, and I have been on both sides of it, is that when one is working with a group like this and one has advisers going around working with farmers, what one is talking about is creating specialists. Glanbia and Kepak want to have a group of specialists who can produce a special product for them and will do that within the group. Some farmers who are not up to that standard will fall away in time and others will stay. Farmers have a fear of the feedlot scenario, that the witnesses will have a specialist category that will produce the best of the product they want under their conditions, and that the others will fall aside, will not get the price and ultimately will fall out of the system and fall away from farming. That concern must be addressed.

As far as I can see, the witnesses are talking about a producer group. This is a farmers' producer group in all but name. It is not being organised by the farmers but by Glanbia and Kepak. The farmers are working to a particular standard, getting a particular price and using particular inputs. They are basically working in that model. At present, there is funding available for producer groups. Has that been examined by the witnesses or by the farmers?