Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Looking at the big picture for farming, once again Europe has failed to grasp the big nettle. Looking at dairy farming and particularly beef and sheep farming, putting aside the fixed grants that people get irrespective of productivity and as long as they have a very basic level of farming going on, the more intensively one farms, the smaller the profit that is made. When a farmer does up his or her accounts at the end of the year, the more intensive farmer will eat more into those grants. I have looked at endless sets of accounts and spoken to endless numbers of farmers. It is absolutely farcical that in this industry, the harder one works, the more intensively one works and the more efficiently one works, the less money is made. Until we grasp that nettle in an international sense, we will have problems in agriculture.

The Minister knows my view on convergence, which is that farmers with high output and very good land should make their money on price. Basing any grant on something that happened in 2001 or 2003 is foolish. A young farmer who is 25 now was five years old when this was settled and if his or her parents or grandparents owned the land, they may not have been farming it intensively. When I tried to ascertain the relationship between stocking intensities and single farm payment rates, the Department indicated that it could not give it to me because with all the buying and selling, the figure would be irrelevant anyway. There is no relationship to what happened in 2001.

Under the previous CAP, the greening payment was not subject to convergence and people continued to get the greening payment at the full 30% rate of what they had inherited from 2001 or what they had bought. What rate will now apply and will that rate continue for the greening part of what will be the new basic payment? We will not have time for the answer today but the Minister might send it on. This is a very fundamental question that I have not seen answered.

I am a little annoyed by commentary from certain farm organisations and leaders that disparages the part-time farmers as if they were happy farmers. The Minister and I know from representing marginal land areas that they are absolutely vital from an environmental perspective. We also know the most productive farmers would be at a loss from a European perspective if we did not have environmental areas.

Everybody forgets that in many cases, farming households on the west coast or in the poorer parts of every other county are dependent on the combined income from a very modest job and their farm to get a decent standard of living. We should remember that there are hilly areas, disadvantaged land and people on low payments in each county. We are talking about a real part of those farmers' annual income that is combined with their off-farm income. Many productive farmers have partners or spouses in very lucrative jobs. All farmers working for a serious income are important, whether they are big or small.

There is another matter that has gone unnoticed. In the north east, REPS amounted to €11,000 for many farmers and now the equivalent process amounts to €4,000, with major compliance costs arising in the context of planners. That is a loss of €7,000 and convergence to date in no way makes up for that loss. The percentage income loss for farmers who got the full rate under REPS and who are getting the current rate of what was GLAS is ginormous.

The reality is we need reform and Europe has baulked at that idea. I spent much time as a Fianna Fáil spokesperson on agriculture discussing price. I went over and back to Europe and people said they were interested. However, we have not dealt with the payment to primary producers. I grant the Minister that this is a worldwide problem but it is also a European one. Until we make it profitable to produce beef, lamb and so on, we will continue to destroy the productive farming we all need.

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