Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter because it is so important to our economy and my constituency. Coming from a neighbouring constituency, the Minister will know the importance of farming in Limerick, where approximately 6,000 farms support 6,000 farm families. We have the full range of farming mix, from dairy and beef to poultry farming. There is very high-quality land across the Golden Vale and marginal land of a lesser quality in other parts of my constituency, which poses challenges. Farming is a major employer, employing almost 10,000 people. The value of agricultural output and exports from my constituency alone is of the order of €1 billion per year, so it is a very important sector.

Farmers in Limerick, similarly to those up and down the country, face great uncertainty because farmers are primarily price takers, as we see in the case of milk and beef. The uncertainty is compounded by the Government formation talks. We hear about an agenda to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 7% year on year, to reduce the national herd or to end the export of live exports, which would narrow the competition available to farmers and producers. All of that is worrying people and it is against the backdrop of the Mercosur deal with the imminent import of cheap beef from countries where the climate change agenda we are discussing simply does not exist, such as Brazil and other parts of South America.

As the Minister knows, we need to support our farmers in Limerick and throughout the country. We need more diversification and we need to scale up the support schemes, particularly to keep the jobs. Some 280,000 people are employed nationwide in food production. That is against the backdrop of a recent UN report that tells us that despite all the scaling up, food production in Ireland will have to increase by about 50% by 2050. We are recognised as a premium-food-producing nation, but we have to build on the scaling up while recognising our climate change agenda.

I thank the Irish Farmers Association, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, the Beef Plan Movement and Macra na Feirme, which are continually in touch with me and my colleagues in Limerick and which impress on us the challenges they endure day after day.

The Minister might reply in writing to the following question in his own time. Will additional funding be made available? Will he scale up the schemes to deal with the challenges of the climate change agenda? Will he outline in his reply what he will do for young farmers? Macra na Feirme has raised with me the issue of the intergenerational transfer of holdings and the challenges that presents.

Finally, broadband is a considerable issue for farming and rural County Limerick, and I echo the comments of other speakers in respect of designated land, which is another significant issue in the county.

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