Mr. Michael Moroney:

On the data processing stuff, we have not done so because nobody has invested in that technology to any great extent here because the additional costs of investing are significant. For example, John Deere has a unit called a HarvestLab, which can be fit onto a machine to measure nutrients, volumes, dry matter, etc. However, very few people have invested in them because the cost is significant. We are talking about in excess of €20,000 just for the unit to be able to measure that. If contractors are to make that investment, they need to be sure they will get some return on it. Quite a small number of people have made such an investment. They are working it with their client farmers. Teagasc and the Department have not come on board to understand the value of that technology, which is now widely available and widely used by our counterparts across Europe. We have not been able to go to events for the past two years, but when we went to exhibitions across Europe and met our counterparts prior to that, we found out that most of the contractors who are dealing with liquid slurries are successfully using that type of technology.