John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I attended another strawberry function a couple of days later where the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, and I launched the new Sunny Wexford Strawberries. It is a marketing concept whereby County Wexford's strawberry growers have joined together to sell their strawberries nationally under that brand. It has already proven to be a successful campaign among supermarkets and retailers up and down the country. We all know that Wexford strawberries are the strawberries in this country.

It is important that agriculture be addressed in the same way, that is, a single brand or logo under which to market products. Fine Gael's election manifesto called for a single brand under which to market Ireland as a green food island. This would be important, as all of the agricultural products produced in this country are practically organic, given how they are grass-based and of high quality. It is important that we continue down that road and use these virtues as a selling point into Europe and elsewhere, as proposed by Deputy Cowen and others.

In recent years, the agricultural industry has invested a great deal of money in farm waste management and environmental matters in particular. They brought it up to a high standard, at enormous cost to farmers, but they were also given substantial grants by the outgoing Government. I hope that will continue.

I hear all the talk about the milk industry, which is important to this country. We were able to deal with the possibility of going over quota this year, but we should consider a Europe-wide quota system. We need to be careful, however, because we do not want to saturate the market. I hear that the milk market will be opened up and we will do away with quotas in 2015, but we have not yet had an analysis of the effect of this on prices. In addition, I am led to believe that co-ops are currently at peak capacity, and there will need to be major investment in milk co-operatives up and down the country before they can deal with increased milk quotas in the future. Young farmers are saying to me they want to avail of milk quota and get into the milk industry, but again, there is a major cost factor, including the upgrading of milking parlours and the development of new milking parlours to cater for increased milk quotas. I wonder what plans the Minister has for grant aid in this area, because it will not happen otherwise. Farmers will not have the financial wherewithal to invest in this area unless they get substantial grant aid from the Government and from Europe. We need to tread carefully in the future.

I understand there was a vote in the European Parliament today on a report on the CAP by Albert Dess, a German MEP. After 2015 we will have CAP reform, and I understand the report suggested that payments under pillar 1, single farm payments, and pillar 2, rural development, should be protected, that the term "active farmer" should be defined once and for all and that grant aid should be paid towards this area. A debate on payment modules also took place.

It is important to recognise that only 7% of farmers in the EU are under 35, and we have the same problem in Ireland. Young farmers also need to be targeted under CAP reform. We must consider the education of young farmers, as mentioned by Deputy Andrew Doyle earlier. In the days of the Celtic tiger, as Deputy McEntee knows, many young farmers left the farm and went into the construction industry and related areas. Thankfully, however, many of them are now returning to farming, including in my county of Wexford.

During the years of the Celtic tiger, farming colleges were practically closed and there was not a great demand for places, but now things have gone in the other direction, and we have a major demand for extra farming places in agricultural colleges. Last year, many young farmers in Wexford or their parents were ringing me to say they could not get into Kildalton or other agricultural colleges because there were no places. This is an area close to the heart of the Minister of State. We should consider seriously how we can increase the number of places in agricultural colleges. We should also consider allowing such courses to be run in VEC colleges. I understand that from 2012 there will be some changes under which that may be allowed to happen. Young farmers from Wexford should not have to go to Cork or Meath or other faraway places. These courses could be put on by vocational colleges and outreach centres such as the one run by Carlow IT in St. Peter's College. This would be an ideal place to set up such a course for young farmers from Wexford and Carlow. This is something the Minister should consider for the future.

We had a large number of farmers outside the gates of Leinster House today. It was like the old days, when the farmers used to come in busloads. Something like five busloads came from Wexford and I am sure there were similar numbers from every other county. I thought farmers only protested when Fianna Fáil was in government, but it was good to see them there today as the Labour Party and Fine Gael are in government.

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