Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion. I welcome the fact that the Rural Independent Group is calling for a beef regulator. The beef industry in this country is a national disgrace. We have a system built on the poverty and misery of tens of thousands of beef farmers. We have many markets that are dysfunctional. While I am thinking of housing and insurance, I am definitely thinking of the beef sector. There is an oligopoly whereby a small number of factories make hundreds of millions of euro in profit annually, much of which is taxed abroad, yet there are tens of thousands of farmers who are forced to sell their beef at a price below the cost of production to those factories annually. We have supermarkets with big pictures of farmers standing in their fields beside their counters that pretend they are interested in their corporate responsibility but they are forcing a price through the market, which means the farmers’ earnings are lower than the cost of production. It is an absolute disgrace.

There are several reasons for this. The Government is seriously deficient in economic expertise. A typical leaving certificate economics class would have more economic know-how than the Cabinet. The relationship between some of the governing parties and the factories in this country is too close. Incredibly, the Fine Gael Chairman of the agriculture committee of the last Dáil said it was unreasonable to expect a guaranteed price above the cost of production for farmers. The Fianna Fáil Deputy at the committee, who is now the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, agreed. That shows the instinct within Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is not to have a fair price for farmers. Aontú drafted a Bill called the Equitable Beef Pricing Bill, which seeks to put a floor under the price of beef just for one year and that reflects the cost of production which would be identified by Teagasc to force the beef factories to negotiate properly with the farmers on a fair price.

The beef sector is extremely profitable. There are three elements to the supply chain, namely, farmers, factories and supermarkets. However, the profits are located in the two latter elements of that chain and are being taken away from farmers. As a result, farmers leave the land every year. Teagasc reckons that only 37% of farmers are able to make a living off farms independently, 35% are only in farming because they work off the farm to make sure they can earn a living and 30% are making a loss and going into debt because of the economic structure in the beef sector.

I have stood at the gates of beef factories up and down this country with farmers while they were holding their protests. They were told that there would be light at the end of the tunnel and there would be fairness in the production system but they have not received it as of yet. Every week, they put in 60 or 70 hours of work to finish up with a price below the cost of production. This is allowed to happen. I welcome the fact that the Rural Independent Group has brought forward this motion. Every tool necessary needs to be brought to bear to make sure we have proper checks and balances over the beef sector in order that all the elements of the supply chain - farmers, factories and supermarkets - get a fair price for a fair day's work.

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