Mr. Brendan Joyce:

The point here is clear. We represent farmers who do not have the opportunity to diversify into dairying. They are beef farmers who are often operating on marginal land where their only option is sheep or cattle. I will keep things very simple. We have a crisis in that sector. The factory cartels with their feed lots are controlling the beef price and we are price takers. We are taking a price well below the cost of production now and we are asking the committee to support us in breaking that cycle.

On the quality of suckler being reared, it is not being promoted as a premium product. We need to get our suckler reared cattle promoted as a premium product, highlighting the very high standards they are reared in on a high grass-based system. That needs to be promoted particularly as many of our sucklers are reared on marginal, high nature-value land, which does not have the alternative to switch to dairying, tillage or other agricultural enterprises.

The beef data and genomics programme and the BEEP are welcome initiatives but have failed the smaller suckler farmer in the west of Ireland. Unfortunately, the level of take up is not acceptable. Those with smaller suckler herds have found the large levels of paperwork that go with them too high a price.

We are calling on the Minister, Deputy Creed, and the Department to review the rural development programme immediately to provide funding which could be targeted towards sustainable suckler herds in areas which have the highest level of dependency on the enterprise. There are clear opportunities in the regulation particularly in relation to the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS. There are far more farmers in the GLAS programme than in either beef genomics programme or the BEEP. While it looks as though the CAP is being delayed, we ask that additional measures be brought in immediately through GLAS which would be targeted at the smaller suckler farms. They are crying out for help. The cost is crippling them and they have no alternatives. They cannot leave the enterprise, it is all they have and the only thing that is suitable to their land.

We welcome the opportunity to make the case here today. I hope this message is heard because it is critical for the farmers we represent on the smaller, marginal farms in the west which do not have the opportunity or ability to change and are hit on every side they turn.