Mr. John Keane:

We recognise that food production has increased and we hope that it will continue to increase. It has increased through improved efficiencies and practices on farms. The output of a beef or a dairy farm now, per hectare, which is the standard unit as it was 40 years ago, is a lot higher based on the efficiencies, developments in research, better management and so forth that is ongoing on farms. That is a positive. Looking at the environmental side of things, the carbon footprint of those products is decreasing per unit all the time. A person goes into a shop and picks up a pound of butter or a kilo of beef, that is what they are eating. They are not eating the entire animal, the total emissions. They are eating that kilo of beef or drinking that litre of milk.

In terms of the maximum size of a farm, we have farmers who are farming on 10 ha, 20 ha, 40 ha and 100 ha but they are still family farms.

The family farm model is something we have to protect. Three or four generations can sustain a livelihood on that farm and we are saying we have to limit it to a scale that will not allow for different generations to exist on a farm. I hope that in ten years' time three generations will be actively farming on my farm. My father and I are currently there and I hope it could sustain three generations in the future. For that to work, the farm has to grow to sustain those people on the farm. I am not saying it has to get to an industrial scale like in Saudi Arabia or in America as that is not the model we have. The scale that supports the family farm is three generations and in some circumstances it is four. That is the reality across the country. The question is around how we ensure the scale of farming rewards those farmers on the different size farms and across the different enterprises. We were in front of this committee before the break in the summertime speaking about unfair trading practices in the market and trying to ensure an economic return for farmers. Those salient points still stand. The price farmers are receiving for their products must be commensurate with the cost of production and must return a reward for them. We have been very strong in our advocacy for that. If a point and a value can be created within the chain so that a farmer receives just reward for what he or she is doing, it will create an income for him or her.