Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State. The agrifood sector plays a key role in the economy. Its high export value gives it the potential to contribute significantly to sustainable economic renewal. It accounts for approximately 10% of the size of the economy and 66% of our indigenous exports. Last year it exported food and drink worth €8.2 billion to 170 markets around the world. Global food demand is growing. We cannot develop our agrifood exports in the absence of a viable farm sector. Senator McFadden used her first-hand experience to tell the House that farmers and others in the agriculture industry are enduring hard times. Farm incomes decreased by 13% in 2008 and are now 22% lower, in real terms, than they were in 1995. It is worrying that product prices for farmers have fallen significantly this year.

The agriculture industry, including the export-dependent agrifood sector, is of huge importance to the economy. Some 270,000 people are employed in the industry, including the agrifood sector and related services. I am sorry to have to say the Government's closure of the rural environment protection scheme has dealt a serious blow to farmers, particularly lower income cattle and sheep farmers. More than 30,000 farmers will be forced out of the scheme in the next two years. Their only option will be to participate in the inadequately funded agri-environmental scheme which might not satisfy EU requirements. Even worse, it is possible that the loss of the rural environment protection scheme will cause us to lose the potential to market our food as environmentally finished. There has been a view that the scheme could be used as a marketing tool to sell Irish food in discerning EU markets. The scheme would stand as a mark of quality, in effect, particularly now that the European Union is moving towards improved food information labels. In closing down the rural environment protection scheme we are closing off this significant potential.