Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Farmers travel from various counties to compete for large tracts of land used by beef farmers and they use mobile units for milking. That has put pressure on local farmers in all the western counties and I hope the Minister will take this on board.

There seems to be a move towards having bigger farms but I am very much in favour of always protecting the family farm. According to farmers, they were basing their borrowing on a milk price of approximately 28 cent a litre. A few months ago, it was anticipated the price per litre would drop during the first six to eight months of this year but, luckily, the devaluation of the euro is probably saving the day but I urge caution in this regard. I have said to farmers all over the country that they should be prudent in their borrowing because we do not want a return to the 1980s. In New Zealand following the abolition of quotas, there were significant farm repossessions and marriage breakdown. This was because farmers went head first into expansion because they thought they landed the lotto. We need to make sure the changeover is handled in an orderly fashion and farmers are protected at all times.

The Minister referred to the increased milk production that will result but something else will suffer because the cow will not milk twice as much as she did last year. There will probably be 50% more dairy cows in the country and, therefore, more land is needed for that. We must consider what we are getting rid of to provide for the increased production. He also talked about more efficient production. In Cork, a cow may go out to grass in February but it could be April or May before a cow will go out in the west. We have to make sure there is a regional balance to production. If there are more cows producing more milk, will we be playing into the beef barons' hands? In recent years, the more cattle that were in the country, the greater the capacity they had to press the button in their factories when they were ready for killing and this enabled them to drop their prices and screw the farmer. I am worried about this. Calves born out of the dairy herd must continue to be exported. Teagasc told every farmer a few years ago to hold on to bull beef because that was the way forward. We held on to them and our pockets were emptied. I urge the Minister to look at this.

I also urge him to incentivise young farmers as much as he can. Some young farmers have missed out on the upcoming change. He should examine their position again because we need young farmers. We used to have 300,000 farmers but we are down to 120,000. I ask him to make sure the beef sector and the sucker cow sector are not taken apart.

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