Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 447: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of farm families involved in deer production in 1997; the number involved in production in October 2005; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31664/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Official data on deer farming is available from the census of agriculture which is carried out by the Central Statistics Office roughly every ten years. The first and so far only census of agriculture that included deer was in June 2000. This stated that there were farmed deer on 266 farms. Teagasc has estimated that the number of farms involved in deer production peaked in the mid-1990s at about 450 and estimates that the number stands at between 200 and 250.

The structure of deer farming has altered over the last ten years and the number of units has decreased. While there are fewer enterprises now, they are larger, more specialised and moving towards quality assured high value product outlets.

Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 448: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of farm families involved in mushroom production in 1997; the number involved in production in October 2005; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31665/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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According to the Teagasc survey, the number of mushroom producers in Ireland in 1997 was 576. The latest information available from Teagasc is that the number of producers has now fallen to 135. However in the same period, the level of production has increased from 57,000 tonnes of mushrooms in 1997 to 65,059 tonnes in 2004 due to the increasing scale and production output of farms remaining in operation.

The mushroom task force which published its report in May 2004 agreed that the industry needed to become more efficient to move forward in a very competitive market environment and agreed a set of recommendations to put it on a firm footing. A review group continues to monitor the implementation of these recommendations.

Under the National Development Plan 2000-2006 my Department will be providing funding of more than €2 million this year to growers for capital investments in buildings and equipment. This follows on the €2.5 million paid to growers under the three earlier rounds of the scheme. Funding under the EU producer organisation scheme is also being provided and this year €5 million was paid to six mushroom producer organisations, bringing the total EU aid in this sector to €16.5 million since 2002.