Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá mé chun tacú le cuid mhaith de na pointí atá ráite cheana féin ag daoine a ghabh romham.

I support many of the points made previously by a number of speakers. The issue of returning emigrants and the green card scenarios should be addressed. It affects certain counties in the west. I hope we can help the returning emigrants who have elderly parents to come home and keep the family farms going. I ask the Minister to address this issue and having considered it, I would welcome his suggestion as to what can be done to support them.

The issues with the payments to areas of natural constraint, ANC is still ongoing. There have been massive meetings of farmers across the western seaboard. The farmers have been very frustrated at the way the ANCs have been approached. If we are to consider the CAP review, I would be in favour of reverting to the Ciolo recommendations. When the previous Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Commissioner Dacian Ciolocame to the committee of these Houses, his understanding of the way that the Common Agricultural Policy was supposed to support the less well off farmers was much more progressive than what we have ended up with under the present Commissioner Hogan. The former Commissioner seemed to be coming from a background where he was very much supporting the smaller family farms. I think the scheme for areas of natural constraint has moved away too much from that, certainly the level of funding for ANCs should be balanced towards the smaller farmers in the really difficult areas of constraint.

Another issue is the family farm being regarded as an asset in determining education grants for those families with children going to third level education. I know the IFA has raised this issue with the Minister on numerous occasions and also with previous Ministers. There was a promise that it would be addressed, but as far as I can see it has not been addressed to date.

The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association were recently quite critical of the Department around the Farmers' Charter of Rights 2015-2020 and the ongoing negotiations and discussions that would happen between the Department and the representative organisations. The INHFA said it was in tatters and raised issues such as the failure to inform claimants of the 2017 BPS. I ask the Minister to address the Farmers' Charter of Rights and how the relationship with the farmers can be rectified because the confidence of farmers in the Department seems to be dented.

The issue of keeping younger farmers in farming, as Senator Lombard mentioned, is a major issue. The continuity of handing over a farm to younger farmers should be made as easy as possible and encouraging older farmers to do so is really important. One of the big factors in that regard is access to basic infrastructure and services in rural areas equivalent to those available to young people who do not live in rural areas such as broadband, nurseries, schools, transport and postal services, health care and replacement services. I appreciate that the brief for rural areas and agriculture are separate but they are intertwined. What level of discussion happens at Government in respect of lobbying fellow Ministers in the different areas such as communications, rural and community development to make sure that basic social community services are in place because that is what people would expect? If a young farmer is trying to decide whether to go to look for work in a municipal area or to stay at home and work on the farm, he or she will be looking at what services are available in his or her local area to raise a family.

The fodder aid scheme is a serious issue particularly in the west and north west. I know that different organisations have been lobbying the Minister on it and it is really important that they get the support they need because they have faced a very difficult situation in the past number of months.

There was a screening of a documentary film called "Just Eat It", which is part of the campaign being organised by the EPA called StopFoodWaste.ie. I was quite shocked and taken aback by the level of wastage. This Canadian documentary looks at food wastage in the US. We are not talking about people throwing out a few bits and pieces after they have had their dinner. They show people who are growing courgettes and celery and the amount of wastage left on the land because it is not viable to go around and pick it up. About 40% of the produce, which is very good food and marketable, is actually wasted in the production process that happens on the farm. There are similar levels of wastages through the system, in packaging, containers and supermarkets. Then there is the whole issue about ugly fruit. One example was around the bananas that are sold in the supermarkets and the restrictions that are put on them as a result of EU regulations. A person visited one of the South American countries where they grow bananas for the European market. There were mountains of bananas that were perfectly good that were being thrown away because they were too wide, too long or had the wrong curvature. It was absolutely astounding. That is something we should address.

We are talking about the food shortage across the world. We are seeing that the conformity in EU regulations is actually working against us. It was very clear to the viewer and it was very frustrating to the producers that food that had a small blemish were not being accepted by supermarkets because they did not look pretty enough on the shelves. I do not know how much food we are wasting in Ireland for similar reasons. What is happening with that food? The film also goes on to show how to work with groups such as the Irish group FoodCloud.ie,a social venture which liaises with a lot of these groups, collects the food that is not being used and brings it to places where it is needed. The Irish group is working very closely with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. They were very busy putting packages together for Christmas. From the farmers' point of view, what are we doing to ensure there is as little waste as possible and that the fabulous resource, which is perfectly good food, is not thrown away? The end game is that people are buying too much food. We impulse buy and we are storing too much food in fridges and we are throwing away a lot of very good food which is going into bins and then nto landfill. The film showed the landfills in North America, huge mountains of very good food that has been thrown away and wasted. I would be interested to learn about the policy of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on food waste.Is the Minister aware of a programme called Stop Food Waste? How can we all promote its aims?

Sin an méid atá le rá agam. Fágfaidh mé leat é sin.