Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address this issue. I compliment Deputy McConalogue and the agricultural team on putting down this motion because we have been in a real crisis in agriculture over the past 12 or 18 months. Many people are saying it was the inclement weather during 2018 but the factors that have led to the crisis in agriculture today are much greater than that. We are at a crossroads. I am a small suckler farmer myself. I have seen the challenges at first hand right across the beef sector and they are creeping into the dairy sector as well. Fundamentally, the challenges have manifested themselves in terms of the calves this spring. In many parts of the country, we have seen the demise of the mountain sheep farmer. I predict that unless something very serious is done, we will see the wipe-out of the suckler farmer and the beef farmer. There will be whole swathes of countryside, particularly marginal land, where we will see land abandonment. We see it already in some of the most marginal parts of the country. In the Sliabh Luachra area and right across the Cork, Kerry and Limerick borders there is significant potential for land abandonment. Over the past six or eight months, there have been massive meetings in marts and elsewhere by the Beef Plan Movement and that has manifested itself in terms of the crisis that they see at the farm gate and the challenges they see. We really have to make sure we stand up to the crisis. Farmers are under mental health stress and beset by financial challenges. They have a whole variety of challenges and they do not see any markets for their product. They are proud people. We have built up a massive industry under regulation after regulation over the last 25 or 30 years. We have the best product on the international market but we are not doing enough to make sure we give them the lifeline. On the markets, particularly for the dairy calves this year, there is no attempt made to get the calves to the market as fast as possible. There are great challenges. There is a raft of changes that are looked for under the beef plan and elsewhere. It has to be implemented and we have to challenge the status quo.

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