Herd growth and farm support schemes
Byrne challenged the Government’s record on increasing cattle numbers, including asking whether ending the Farm Modernisation Scheme would hinder growth. Noonan sought details of new proposals; the Minister cited annual EEC-supported premiums and grants and said the herd had increased by 1.9 per cent between June 1981 and June 1982.
Would the Minister accept that the beginning of the nose dive with regard to our cattle was in 1974 and the dive continued at an enormous rate until 1977? Would he accept that the cattle population in this nation is far below what it might be, and that if the economy is to improve it will depend on the increase in cattle population? What positive steps have the Minister's Government taken since they came into power in order to increase the cattle population? I know, as every other farmer knows, that the cattle population is smaller this year than last year or the year before, irrespective of what we have heard here today. I would also like to ask——
Comment on this
Yes, this is the question. I would like to ask him if the discontinuance of the Farm Modernisation Scheme will contribute to a further slowing down or decrease in the national herd.
Comment on this
It sounded more like a Second Stage Speech. There is a great deal of conjecture in what has been said. The statistics for 1983 are not available. As I stated in reply to an earlier supplementary question, the national herd increased by 1.9 per cent between June 1981 and June 1982 and all the indications are that that trend is continuing.
Comment on this
(Limerick West): Is the Minister aware that the plans he outlined in his reply were already in operation when he took up his position as Minister for Agriculture and that he did not reply to the question at all? He was asked what his Government's proposals were to increase the national herd. We would like to have those details.
Comment on this
The matters that have been referred to by Deputy Noonan are not perpetual schemes. The subsidies and premia to which I referred in my reply are negotiable every year and there is a considerable area of doubt annually as to whether these are to be renewed by the EEC. Luckily for us, they have been renewed for the current year. As I stated in my original reply, the subsidies and premia available to a farmer for a cow and a calf in the disadvantaged areas amount to £169 and the sums available in those areas of silage which are disadvantaged amount to £116.