Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Ireland has gone from being a country very dependent on agriculture to one that is no longer so dependent. It is important that we protect the industry and the people therein. Agriculture has a big impact on our environment. It is appropriate that Dr. Mansergh mentioned the environment and the views of the Green Party. There is a growing awareness of the importance of the environment. However, the support farmers receive under the REP scheme is far too low. There are requirements on farmers in the form of checks and balances and examinations and restrictions are placed on them through their involvement in the REP scheme. They deserve a significant increase in levels of support for that involvement. Anyone with a true commitment to the environment should support that because it is important to all of us.

The problem with agriculture is very simple, but I do not know the solution. From the beginning of time, the objective of people working on the land was to make that land as productive as possible. The effective farmer was the person who produced the most. That has changed since Ireland joined the EU. With the introduction of quotas, farmers are actually penalised for producing above a certain level. People should think about that for one second. We have turned the attitude of people working on the land on its head. In the past, the heroes of farming were people who could go to the local agricultural show and display cows who could produce an enormous quantity of milk in one year. The current position is that if they go over the limit, they are fined. How have farmers been able to adjust to that? They have not been able to adjust to the idea of leaving land to lie fallow.

We need to discuss the environment issue in greater depth. With the Kyoto Agreement, there are many requirements on countries and all debate correctly focuses on dirty industry. Nonetheless, the reality is there are some industries which will never be completely clean despite the Kyoto Agreement. We can balance the dirty industry with the production of environmental cleansing through various forms of farming, of which forestry is a classic example. Farmers should be able to sell environmental credits to industry for having a certain acreage in a particular crop which aids the environment. The captains of industry who pollute the earth and air elsewhere should be required to buy these credits. This would allow the implementation of the Kyoto Agreement, which looks at the positives as well as the negatives. This is already being done in parts of the Caribbean. In this way we can ensure that the wealthy countries of the developed world, which are polluting the atmosphere, are required to buy credits to cleanse the environment from those parts of the world where the opposite is happening.

We must look at the restrictions and restraints that are placed on the development of farming by the EU. It is very easy to have smart Alec debates on the straight banana, the wine lake and the butter mountain, which bring the EU into disrepute. However, there are positive things that could be done. The demands placed on fruit and vegetable producers to sort vegetables and fruit before they are allowed on the market are utter nonsense. Any chef will attest to the fact that a large beef tomato can often be tastier than a small greenhouse-produced one, which is small and perfectly spherical. Some of the requirements for sorting and grading are an unnatural and unnecessary restriction on vegetable farmers. Market gardening is impossible when someone in Brussels decides that all tomatoes should be graded according to size. In the past, we knew what we were looking for in a vegetable shop and were not worried about the size of a tomato.

The requirements in the food processing industry need to be examined. Someone who runs a sandwich business and is supplying ten outlets has to meet the same requirements and conditions as someone whose business supplies 500,000 sandwiches per day. That kind of restriction does not apply solely to agriculture. People come back from holidays in Europe with stories of how they had meals in restaurants for half of the price of such meals in Ireland. That problem has partly been created here. We have put demands on restaurant owners to meet unnecessary restrictions in hygiene and planning in order to go into business. These problems are also hitting the food processing industry and agriculture. They hit market gardeners and those they supply. There is no reason a small town delicatessen could not sell sandwiches to local shops in the area. If they are to do so, they must comply with the strictest and most demanding of rules and regulations, which are really written for huge operations. This should also be addressed.

On at least two occasions in the past year, farmers have raised the question of the cost and value of milk and of payment therefor. I still do not know why farmers are being paid a pittance at the factory gate and why the housewife is being screwed for huge sums of money when she is buying it in the shop.