Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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Many of the points I intended to raise were made earlier and therefore I will not repeat them. I thank the President of the IFA, Professor Renwick and Mr. Kevin Kilcline for coming before us today. Professor Renwick's point was interesting in that the level of intensity of the farming practice also impacts on production costs. In terms of suckler cows and sheep, cattle and sheep farmers may be engaged in intensive farming or they may have fragmented, poor holdings with low stocking densities and their production costs will be lower. Professor Renwick is right in saying that our goal must be to try to maintain our cattle population. We have to get the balance right. Food Harvest 2020 has the ambitious target of increasing the dairy sector by 50%. If that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul, whereby farmers will leave the beef industry and enter the dairy industry, there will be increases in the latter but we will lose out on the former. It brings to mind the capacity in the country and the point to which we can increase overall production in all the sectors. If we agreed that our goal is to maintain our cattle numbers in particular and improve our sheep numbers, the discussion moves on to the role that the direct payment schemes play. Professor Renwick is right in saying that it would be good for this committee not to take for granted that a suckler cow payment will maintain or increase cattle numbers and that we need to focus on a wider view.

I noted from a slide in Professor Renwick's presentation that from 1994 to 1995, when ewe numbers started to fall - there was a change in the ewe premium - the rural environment protection scheme was in place and I would have thought that sheep and cattle farmers were probably the largest recipients of REPS payments as against farmers engaged in tillage or the dairy sector. Even though REPS payments were introduced for environmental purposes, the income derived from them was in the general wash of farm income, but it did not help farmers to maintain hill sheep numbers. The report is useful for us in focusing on this area. I would support it. It is vital that we have a good suckler cow scheme into the future. I hope that there will be provision for something like that in the budget.