Mr. Nigel Renaghan:

I will start with the last question first. Deputy Carthy mentioned the organic mart in Ballybay. I was in contact with the mart manager before he set it up and I encouraged him to do it.

It is a slow process but being able to export live cattle would be a major bonus. That brings me to the beef sector and I will be honest with the members about it. Some of our members are involved with the Irish Organic Beef Producers Association. Effectively, it involves many farmers stretching from Dublin to Galway. They were supplying Good Herdsmen. They had a three-year deal to supply a certain number of cattle a week. In the middle of that the farmers were shafted. They were told they were not wanted any more and their contracts were torn up. We in the IFA met the farmers. Some of the farmers involved are on our project team. We tried to re-establish a deal. We went to the Bord Bia stand at a show in Germany and met John Purcell. We engaged with him to see if anything could be done but we were put off the Bord Bia stand at BIOFACH, which is the biggest organic show in Europe. Myself, Niamh Brennan, our executive secretary, our vice chairman, John Curran, Gordon McCoy and another farmer went there. Effectively, we were put off the stand and told we were obstructing business, which we were not. We were trying to help those farmers. Since then contact was made with the same group of farmers. It said they would not deal with them as a group but would deal with them individually. The Government is promoting producer groups. We had a producer group that was up and running selling approximately 35 to 40 head of cattle every week and it was cast aside. That was disgraceful. An offer was made to some of those individuals a few weeks ago to the effect they could sell beef at €5 a kilo but they ended up getting €4.90 a kilo and the promise of €5 a kilo was not met. Traditionally, the price for the sale of beef was at least €1 a kilo more. If we take the sale of price of the beef at €4.20 per kilo plus the Bord Bia bonus of 20 cent a kilo, one would wind up, taking everything into account, with a price of €4.50 a kilo. No bonuses are being paid now. The flat price is €4.90 a kilo. Farmers must be Bord Bia approved to get into that scheme but farmers are not getting the 20 cent per kilo bonus on top of the flat price of €4.90, which they should be getting.

One company is controlling the Irish beef industry. It bought Good Herdsmen. The ABP Group controls more than 90% of all beef processed in the Republic of Ireland. That is a fact. It is little wonder the price is at the level it is at. At a minimum the price should be €5.40 or €5.50 a kilo if not more. In Scotland, the price of beef is more than €6 a kilo. There are questions to be asked about that. Our organisation has asked that company those questions but we have not got answers. Perhaps the members of the committee could ask those questions. I would welcome any questions members may have on that issue.

Regarding Teagasc and the knowledge transfer structure, we mentioned what could be done. Teagasc is in operation and my colleague from Donegal mentioned the knowledge transfer structure. We are all farmers and I do not distinguish between any of us. Teagasc should not be doing any nitrogen trials. That is a problem. EU Directive 92/43/EEC is an important one. It states at a maximum a mountain cannot be stocked above 0.25 livestock units per hectare. I agree with the stocking density allowed on a mountain area. Some people will say the payment in respect of that is a retrospective one. Farmers will get it in any event. The payment for organic producers is based on 60 ha. There are not a great number of farmers with more than 60 ha in mountain areas. We should have a stocking level that a mountain area is able to support and there should be a mixture of cattle on that land. There is a notion that mountain areas need to be farmed but the use of nitrates on that land needs to stop. Many farmers are taking up swathes of hills using them for nitrates. They do not even know where the nitrates are and they are not farming the land. If they are putting in for the payment they should be farming the land and there should be a mixture of cattle on it. A farmer with a shed housing 200 Holstein bulls on a hill 2,000 ft above sea level is not farming the land. That must be addressed. If farmers say they are using the land, they need to do so and to have traditional breeds of cattle on it.