Joe Callanan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion on agriculture. In the short time the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, has been in office she has made a significant impact for the betterment of the farming community. I thank the previous Minister, Deputy Walsh, for the great work he did for agriculture over many years. It is fair to say that the Department of Agriculture and Food is one of the most efficient organisations in the country.

The decision by the Minister to introduce full decoupling of direct payments from 1 January 2005 was the correct one, one with which most farmers agreed. Decoupling will give farmers the freedom to farm for the marketplace. Before decoupling, farmers had to keep large numbers of stock in order to get a decent amount of premium. They also had to buy and sell stock to suit premium and extensification dates. These restrictions suited the meat factories as farmers had to sell too many cattle and sheep to them before certain dates, therefore making it easier for meat factories to drop prices. Under decoupling a farmer can keep the amount of stock which suits his or her farm and still receive the same amount in payments. If the number of stock decreases it should cause market prices to increase. Most farmers will keep a reasonable amount of stock and will concentrate on better quality animals that suit the market. It is important to recognise the deal that was secured by our Ministers for Irish agriculture.

The stacking of entitlements will be a great advantage for some farmers. Where a farmer who owns 100 acres rented another 100 acres in the reference years, he can stack his full entitlement even if he cannot rent an extra 100 acres under the decoupled system and receive full payment. Farmers can also plant part of their land with forestry and stack their payments on the rest of the land. This is also allowed if land is sold to local authorities for road making.

Another advantage under the decoupling deal is that farmers can still get their area based, or headage as it used to be called, payments in disadvantaged areas and the REPS payment in addition to the single payments. REPS has been a good scheme for farmers and the environment. I would encourage all farmers to get involved in the REP scheme. The Minister should ensure that reasonable notice would be given to farmers prior to inspections under the REPS or other schemes before compliance inspections take place. Inspectors should be farmer friendly and where small areas of non-compliance are discovered a yellow card system could be used that would allow a farmer a week or two to remedy the situation. If the farmer remained non-compliant at that stage he should be penalised.

Agriculture is still a significant industry in Ireland with agri-food exports worth €7 billion. Ireland is the fourth largest food exporter in the European Union. We are 800% self-sufficient in the beef sector, 300% self-sufficient in sheep meat and 900% self-sufficient in butter and milk products. Our export markets are important for that reason. Bord Bia and other agencies do a wonderful job selling our produce. Our quality assurance scheme and labelling are most important. Our drive for total traceability to the farm gate has worked well in helping us hold on to existing markets and gain new markets throughout the world. I compliment the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, on her work in promoting our pigmeat and beef on her recent visit to China.

In future it will be most important that we invest in research and development to find out what the market wants. I am pleased with the sum of €10.6 million that was allocated to FIRM, the Food Institutional Research Measure, in 2005 to encourage high quality research.

I welcome the fact that our disease control measures are at last working with a sharp decline evident in the number of herds restricted by TB and brucellosis. We must keep a close eye on the import of beef from foreign countries to ensure it is fully compliant with our disease controls, especially to ensure that it is hormone-free. While I am in favour of full traceability, the separate tagging of every sheep appears to cause a great deal of hardship for sheep farmers. I always held the view that a herd tag would provide adequate traceability.

Agriculture is in good hands with the Minister, Deputy Coughlan. Her support for live exports is most welcome. We need a live export trade to provide competition for the factories. I support the amendment to the motion.

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