Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 973: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the action he has taken at national or EU level to ensure the availability of adequate home-grown animal feed supplies here and throughout Europe; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11302/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The average annual yield of the cereals in Ireland is of the order of 2m tonnes, over eighty percent of which is used for animal feed.

Ireland has, on average, an annual shortfall of about 550k tonnes of cereals per annum for use as animal feed. This shortfall is met by imports, mainly from continental Europe.

In 2007, due to adverse weather conditions, there was a significant decline in cereal output in Ireland and across the EU generally. Following requests by a number of Member States, including Ireland, the EU Commission put in place measures to address this problem by temporarily suspending import duties for certain cereal crops and relaxing setaside rules.

Cereal output increased significantly in Ireland in 2008 to an estimated 2.4 million tonnes, a 21% increase on the 2007 harvest and the second highest on record.

The EU is normally self sufficient in cereals and traditionally has been a net exporter of grain. However, due to the bad Community harvest in 2007, the EU became a net importer to the value of 8.4 million tonnes during the 2007/2008 marketing year. To date, in the 2008/2009 marketing year, the EU has returned to being a net exporter, to the value of 13.7 million tonnes of grain.