Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. The €55 million silage scheme he has introduced is a positive development that will put money back in the pockets of farmers. It is also good to see the establishment of the national fodder and food security committee. Year on year, the farming organisations have only been brought to the table at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine when a crisis is unfolding. That is not good enough. Research undertaken by University College Cork last winter suggests fodder crises may become an annual event. We need to factor that into our approach.

There are many variables that are putting huge pressures on farmers, including the cost of fertiliser. Figures released last week indicate that the purchase of fertiliser is already down by some 15% this year. The soils are warming up and the rain is falling but the ground is not fertilised. What I have seen increasingly in Clare and other counties in the west, where the land is heavy and it is wet for much of the year, is that farmers are bringing the cattle into the slatted shed later into October, or sometimes even in early November, and letting them out sooner the following year. The grass is not having a chance to grow. All of that, cumulatively, will have a huge impact when we get to the winter period and people are trying to hold on to bales.

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