Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 80: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the extent to which she is assured of the viability of the agri-sector in the future with particular reference to family farm income; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17405/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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As part of the agri-vision 2015 committee's report, an analysis of current and future farm viability levels was undertaken by FAPRI-Ireland. It defined viability using two criteria — where a farm has the capacity to remunerate family labour at the average agricultural wage and the capacity to provide an additional 5% return on non-land assets. Using these criteria, 28% of the 136,000 farms in 2002 were classified as economically viable. FAPRI-Ireland said that if past trends and policy prior to decoupling were continued to 2015, the number of viable farms would fall to 30,000 out of a total of 105,000 farms.

However, when changes such as decoupling, improved demography and a favourable macro-economic environment are taken into consideration, the composition of the 105,000 farms projected for 2015 alters, with a greater number of viable farms being projected for the future. FAPRI's projections indicated an increase to 40,000 viable farms or 38% of farms in 2015. It largely attributed this improvement to the greater economic choices provided to farmers by decoupling. This greater range of choice, FAPRI-Ireland predicts, should lead to an improvement in farm incomes and also allow more farmers the option of supplementing their income from off-farm employment.