Dr. Liam Hanrahan:

I thank the Senator. Another challenge on top of what Ms Houlihan has already mentioned are the labour costs on young farmers or growers. We have one particular grower on our committee who employs 20 to 25 people. As of yesterday, his labour charges are gone up approximately €300 to €400 in one day, and there are not many farmers making €300 to €400 a day unfortunately. It is a serious challenge and is particularly challenging for young people. As we have already mentioned, it is a capital-investment-heavy sector to get into and quite a small number of people are involved in this as a result. If we do not maintain these growers, we are going to be left with either a very small number of growers or none at all. For sure, we can be part of an advertising campaign. We try advertising campaigns ourselves on agriculture in general. However, a campaign to combat food waste and to promote Irish produce would be something we would love to be involved in. Who would not just love to be driving down the motorway with a billboard promoting an increase in food intake of Irish food?

Finally, on the budget again, with inflation where it is we would want to see a real-term increase in the budget and in money allocated for agriculture. There were €17 billion of exports last year. Agriculture is a massive industry in the country. A huge number of people and an awful lot of the rural economy is based on farming alone.