Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing time with my two colleagues. We will be supporting the motion put forward by Fianna Fáil in regard to the fodder crisis. The crisis has been going on for a very long time. In October of last year, I first raised with the Minister that a fodder crisis was looming in the north west. The Minister had at that time a very bland attitude to the matter and insisted that there was no crisis, there was plenty of fodder in the country and, although some farmers may be short, they could get fodder from their neighbours. That was true in some cases. However, 12 months before that, as I am sure the Minister will remember, I raised with him the possibility of a crisis in the winter of 2016-17 when I could see that farmers in the north west were very short of fodder. The farmers were lucky that year that there was a middling spring and they got through it. The essence of this is that farmers depend on the weather, as we know. I earlier joked with the Minister in the canteen that it was not his fault that the grass did not grow. However, the crisis is the fault of the Minister and the Government as they did not make provision for the possibility of its occurring. That is the issue which we raise here.

The Minister last week said at a meeting of the joint committee that it would not have been appropriate to import fodder a couple of months ago. No one asked for fodder to be imported a couple of months ago. Teagasc officials were going around the country to address farmers. I was at a meeting with the IFA in Drumshanbo in County Leitrim last November at which a representative of Teagasc advised farmers to feed more concentrates in order to spread out and stretch out what silage they had. That was the consistent message it gave. Approximately two months later, just after Christmas, Teagasc told us that farmers were approaching a crisis and had no money to buy more concentrates and that something would have to happen very quickly.

There should have been some connection between the advice that Teagasc was giving and the action the Minister was taking but there was not. Rather than taking the advice of Teagasc and stepping in to assist with the provision of concentrates, the Minister, against expert advice, provided a scheme to move fodder from other parts of the country. That is an important point. At all stages, the Minister told and showed me that donedeal.iewas the answer; that there was plenty of fodder for sale on that site. We all know that one may decide to purchase something on donedeal.ieand make the phone call to arrange to buy it. When one goes to look at the item, what one is supposed to get and what is actually there are two different things. Often, it is not there when one goes to collect it. That was a very strange way of dealing with this crisis.

Another point continuously raised was that any farmer who was in a serious crisis such that he or she could not feed his or her animals, should contact the Department and the Department would step in. I know of farmers who reached that crisis point and went to the Department. The Department told the farmers it would feed the cattle for a couple of weeks until it got a test and then it would sell them. It was telling the farmers that their crisis would be ended very quickly. The Department was not going to help farmers through the crisis into the future but, rather, would ship the cattle off to the mart. That was not a solution.

The issue of where we go with this was earlier mentioned by Deputy Deering in terms of Food Wise 2025 and the intensification of farming. Much of the crisis relates to that intensification and the reality that, particularly in the south and east of the country where there is better land, more and more people are going into dairy and there is more and more stock. We are running into a problem which is putting pressure on the entire system. We must reconsider that approach. Food Wise 2025 must be examined because we must accept that sometimes we need to consider changing the model that we use in different places. That must happen reasonably quickly.

I concur with and support much of the motion. However, Sinn Féin has tabled an amendment which aims to solve this issue into the future. Last autumn, I and other Members stated that the crisis was due to saturated land, because of which farmers could not get a second cut of silage. Farmers in parts of the country, such as the south, who were used to getting a third cut, were definitely going to miss out on that. In my part of the country, most farmers could not get a second cut of silage. Those who did, got it in October and it was useless in terms of quality because the land was so wet. The land is so wet in many parts of the country because there has been no effort through the years to provide any assistance to farmers for a land drainage or reclamation programme. It has been many years since any action was taken in that regard. There is now an opportunity to do something about that. That would help to ensure that the land is a bit drier to get out slurry and fertiliser and get the grass to grow a little earlier in the spring. We have tabled our amendment, which I hope will be supported by Fianna Fáil and all others in the House, in order to have a scheme put in place which will help farmers to drain land when needed.

The poor return farmers get for their produce is one of the problems at the heart of this crisis. When a crisis comes, the farmer is short not alone of fodder, but also money. Suckler and sheep farmers in the north west find it very difficult to make ends meet even without a crisis such as this. Someone once told me that the definition of poverty is not that one is in the Horn of Africa and does not have enough to eat but that one cannot cope with a crisis when it comes. That is the case for many farmers in this situation. That must be recognised and there must be an understanding that there must be an emphasis on ensuring that farmers can get a fair price for their produce, which is not currently the case.

One point raised in the motion concerns the payment of the various schemes. The GLAS scheme is due to be paid in the middle of May. However, in the context of the current crisis there is no reason the 15% payment due to farmers, which amounts to approximately €500 or €600 for most, cannot be sped up, paid immediately and farmers sent a cheque this week. Somebody in the Department will say that would breach an EU regulation. The time has come to breach such regulations and look for forgiveness later rather than permission now. It is time to send that money out to farmers so that they can have a chance to relieve the situation.

This problem developed because of the weather. However, there was no foresight on the part of the Minister or the senior people in the Department in terms of doing something about it. The advice from the farm organisations, Teagasc and the people on the ground was that the situation was dire and action needed to be taken. However, no action was taken. To talk about importing fodder when the dairy co-ops had already started to do so was too little, too late. It was a mark of the Government's failure on this issue. It should own up to that situation and admit it cocked up but state that it will put provisions in place to ensure the same will not happen again, and that it will do something now by sending the GLAS money to farmers and putting in place a scheme for the provision of a meal voucher not just this year, but every year. There must be a contingency plan for this situation and an overview of where Food Wise 2025 is going and where it will leave us.

We must stand back from the situation, recognise there is overstocking in some cases and re-examine where it is going. I will hand over to my colleagues.

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