Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests here today. I am unsure whether it is a conflict of interest any longer, but I was an organic farmer up to last year. My son is an organic farmer now. In the 20 years that I was an organic farmer, it was the nearest thing to the biggest farce that is out there at the present time. The price of cattle never changed. If a farmer lived in a peripheral area, such as in most of west Cork, there was no opportunity to sell his or her cattle. There was one buying somewhere in the country and the farmer's time was spent trying to chase that buyer. It was very difficult to find a market for them which was a shame. In my view, the local marts should have been used at roughly the same time weanlings were being sold, and they should have set aside a time to sell organic cattle but that never took place. For any young person starting off in beef farming, it is shameful.

Every day of the week in the Dáil, we are told about new eco-schemes. We have a great scheme in the existing organic scheme. That is not the witnesses’ fault, but the Department and others need to be educated about how to further progress the current organic scheme. They do not need to dream up any more schemes. That is how I feel about it. It is only a dream because they have a scheme that they cannot progress any further. The bottom line is that farmers are not getting the right price for their cattle. If they do not get the right price for their cattle, it will discourage young people from going into organic farming. What is the price difference between organic and conventional beef?

What is the price difference between organic and conventional produce? Do the witnesses see a way forward for young people - or people of any age, for that matter, including start-up farmers - who get involved in organic farming to get a market or proper price for their cattle? In my case, and I am not the most active farmer, the bottom line is I would have sold my cattle as organic if I could have but I was selling them on the ordinary market, the same as every other farmer who had weanlings. I will have more questions for the Department later.