Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is more than welcome to the Chamber. I sympathise with the Ukrainian people and, in particular, the Ukrainian farmers who are stuck on the horns of a dilemma at the moment. When they should be out working the fields, they are in the middle of a war zone. I do not know, and can only imagine, what they are going through. I pass on my sympathies to them on what they are going through at the moment. There are stuck with an unfortunate dilemma.

Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe. It is the second largest exporter of grain into the EU and it is also one of the largest exporters of grain into Asia and north Africa. There will be a significant impact on world peace if we do not find a solution to the war. If we do not find suitable solutions to the need for grain in Egypt and other countries, it will have a considerable impact on world security. That will be a knock-on implication of this unfortunate war.

The costs associated with this war have gone through the roof. The costs of energy, fuel and grain have all increased dramatically. Last year, I was buying fertiliser for €208 per tonne. This year, I paid €1,027 for the same product. That is an indication of how costs have gone through the roof. Meal for cows has gone up by €180 in the past four months. There have been significant increases in the cost of farming. Balancing that cost will mean price inflation at the other end and the consumer will, unfortunately, pay more for products on the back of this war. There will be considerable issues in the short term with the cost of fertiliser and fuel.As other colleagues have stated, fuel costs have gone through the roof. I was speaking to one contractor yesterday who had paid €1.28 per litre. He was literally paying double what he paid last year. That is going to have a huge impact. There is going to be a massive issue with how we are going to look at our food policy going forward. This is a sea change. We are going to see price inflation and because of that we will see a huge issue with food security.

Today we had a protest by the pig industry. It is one of the first casualties of this war when it comes to food security in Ireland. Energy and transportation costs have gone through the roof but the price of meal has gone up by nearly 90% in the past four months. It is quite possible the industry will go into significant decline and it is questionable that it is sustainable going forward. It is a debate we are going to have at the agriculture committee but the Minister might give us his thoughts on how we are going to sustain that industry in future.

The tillage industry is going to play a major role in trying to ensure we have enough grain going forward. This is not only for our cattle and sheep industries but also for the flour we need. We have specialised grain farmers who are significant operators. They can produce high-quality grain in volume but need support to do it. The proposal from the Minister needs to be clarified with respect to how we can entice these competitive, capable operators to do more with what they have. I mean no offence to Senator Paul Daly and beef farmers but having them come into that sector is questionable in many ways. We need to try to promote the specialised people in that market. The analogy I was given at the weekend was that is like telling grain farmers they need to go milking cows because we are going to be short of milk. Growing grain is a specialised practice. We need to find a policy where we can get these productive lads in the ring so they can deliver the tonnage we require by next September. That is going to be a body of work that will, I hope, be solved in the next few weeks.

The real issue here is the European food policy as well as European policy on food security and energy. All of these must be looked at again. Our food policy and our food security policy has been shown to be very weak. They depend on bringing in large volumes of fertiliser from third countries that we have no control over the volatility of. As a result, we are now going to suffer a food crisis. The same thing is said about the production of grain. If we bring in large volumes of grain, again from a third-country source, how can we have food security on our own Continent? A complete rethinking of our food security policy is needed. When the CAP was originally set up it was about producing enough food that Europe would not starve. We had moved away from that but we are now moving back to it. That is because we are stuck in a scenario of increasing costs that will unfortunately mean we might not have enough going forward. Other speakers are correct that we do not know where this is going to end. Europe will survive but north Africa will be in exceptional chaos in 18 months if there is a shortage of grain. That is a real problem for the world and for Europe especially. What we do in Europe will have a knock-on impact on the north African economies and could destabilise them. That will have massive implications for how we are going to ensure we have a safe and secure world in future. This war is a game changer and we must now change policies we never previously thought we would have to change. However, if we do not change them we could have a scenario where the unthinkable happens and we could have unrest in countries that have been stable for decades, due to a lack of food and energy security.