Commission on the Future of the Family Farm Bill 2024: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

I was just reading through the Minister of State's list in his statement. "The work ahead is substantial", it reads. It refers to making farming "attractive to young people". The difficulty is that young people do not see a way of getting into farming because an awful lot of them cannot afford to buy the land when it comes up, if there is land beside them, or even to lease land because the bigger you are, the longer or better you survive. The very large dairy farmers are eating up any possibility for anyone else to get started. We have the same thing with tillage. The Minister of State mentioned tillage being something we needed to develop, and it is the same problem. We have one sector which is dominating. We know that the dairy industry in Ireland is extremely successful and doing extremely well but we need to be able to put some check in place to ensure that it does not smother out opportunity for everybody else. That is one of the things we need to do and one of the issues this commission would need to deal with.
The statement refers to "orderly and fair succession". Orderly and fair succession in most cases cannot happen because farmers do not see a future for the family to be able to maintain a decent income on the farm for a second generation to be able to live on it without having off-farm income, sometimes maybe several off-farm incomes, to do that.
The Minister of State mentioned "strengthening farmers" position in the value chain". The food regulator has been crying out for the past couple of years, since its establishment, for more resources and proper teeth to be able to deal with issues, and the Government has not provided them. The position of the farmer in the value chain is one of the key aspects of this.
The farmer takes all the risk. The farmer is the one who gets up at night, makes sure the cow is calving and checks the cattle. Earlier today, I was talking to people about rural crime and farmers who have their machinery stolen and all these issues. Farmers are dealing with all these things. They are the ones taking all the risk in all of this. Then, when they sell on their product, the processor takes its margin and sells it on to the retailer, and the retailer takes its margin. However, if things go wrong and get a little tight, what happens then? They will tell you about international pressures and global food chains and the way everything is connected around the world.
If there is a possibility of getting a portion of the product or an ingredient of the product somewhere cheaper, they will get it from there. Who suffers? It is the farmer, who takes all the risk, and the one without whom there would be none of it. We have the protests going down at Bord Bia at the moment. Only for the farmers there would be no Bord Bia. There would be nothing to market anywhere in the world. That seems to be lost on those who sit around boardroom tables but it is not lost on the farmer because they know that without them there would be nothing there.
It seeks to ensure that climate and environmental measures are practical and economically viable. Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned some of these measures with regard to rewetting and climate change. There are more restrictions coming on farmers all the time to do more public good. We can debate the viability of them and all that but the ultimate viability of them is whether or not the farmer will be paid for that. The difficulty is that they do not see a future in it. They do not see themselves being paid for it, because it is all short-termism.
Forestry was also mentioned in the Minister of State's opening speech. Farmers who decide to go into forestry plant the land. They get a grant to do it. After seven or eight years they get a portion where it can be thinned and the thinnings can be sold off. At the end of it they can sell off the finished timber if they get that far and they get a decent price for it. It is tax free. That is all very good. The difficulty is that they have to replant the land again. It can never go back into farming. That is the only thing it can never be used for. It is gone forever. It is a permanent change of land use. Last year, we had a storm. Around me, hundreds of thousands of trees were knocked and are gone. Many of them had only been planted for between ten and 15 years. Going in to clear those trees out it cost more than they were worth and the farmer still has to replant the land. There is that possibility of that risk for them, and that is one of the key environmental measures the Minister of State is talking about. That risk is too high for them to look at. Some still are, but many people see a huge problem in that. The amendment put forward is looking at Food Vision 2030, CAP and all of these things as though they will be the saviour. The fact is they are not the saviour for the farmer. They are the saviour for the food processor and the retailer. That is who they are the saviour for. They are ensuring they can get a living, not the farmer. There used to be an old saying, "Wait, horse and you will get grass." That is what they used to say, and it is the same thing for this. If they wait long enough they might get a good year or two, but there are five or six bad ones. They might get another good year or two, and then they will have another row of bad ones. That is what is happening with farming. That has been the cycle up to now. We are saying there needs to be a commission that is focused on the family farm and not focused on the industry and on those who are already doing well, not comforting the comforted and the comfortable but looking after those who are taking the risk and without whom none of this would happen. Looking to that is why we feel there needs to be a focus and a listening ear to what they want, what they need, what their future communities need and what their future family needs to keep that farm sustainable and ensure that the small family farm is going to be there into the future. What will happen is what we see in some sectors. We have seen it across Europe and other parts of the world. The larger farmers and the food industry companies start taking over the farms. When they start taking over the farm, bit by bit they become the farmer. Farming becomes a corporate model. They keep buying more land and taking the opportunities and the farmer just becomes an employee of that industry. That is not a good way forward. That is not the way of the traditional agricultural sector we have in Ireland. It is going to be detrimental for the future, because when some global crisis comes that corporation is gone and all you are left with is debt. The whole lot is belly up, the same as when the building boom burst. We cannot see that happen. That is why it is so important that we get the re-emphasis back on making the family farm sustainable in the long term. That may require support from the Government, which is only for that sector, not just for the big industry.
It is more than disappointing that the Government is saying that what it is doing is working. If people open their eyes they will see it is not working. It is not working for the small family farms around the country that are practically on their knees. In my county of Leitrim there are five cattle marts, which is unusual, because with so many of the cattle the weanlings are sold. We used to say the big farmers from the midlands and the south came up and bought them and brought them off to the good land and made money on them. That was the system. Many of those marts are now under pressure. In fact, one of them in the town of Mohill is talking about closing. Why is that? If you take the town of Mohill there is practically nothing else in it. There is a modular cold store factory I know many are employed in, maybe 100 or so, or maybe less. Apart from that there is nearly no other industry around it. It is depending on the people in the rural community for the seven to ten miles around it to come in to buy their shopping, do whatever they are doing, and the mart is the central part of that. If we continue to go down this route where farmers will have to get bigger and there will be less of them, it will eventually become a corporate model, and we will end up in a situation where we see whole communities left behind. People will say no-one shouted, "Stop." That is the opportunity we are saying is here. The Government can bury its head in the sand and say it is doing great because the guys around the boardroom says it is doing well. For the ordinary people on the ground, we are not doing well. The ordinary people who want a future in small towns and villages the length and breadth of this country do not see the boom in agriculture going back to provide a future for them. The Government put forward its amendment. That is fine. That is what governments do when they are in power but they have to be responsible to the people who put them there as well. Whatever differences we have politically, the Minister of State has to understand. He also comes from a rural part of County Galway. Many people in that area and in his county want a future in agriculture. That is why this Government needs to put a focus on maintaining and sustaining the family farm model into the future, and not allow it to go down this direction, which it clearly is, where it will be about the boardroom. We need to get back to sustaining the family farm and putting measures in place. If the farmer is profitable and making money the rural economy is vibrant. The small towns are doing well. At the moment, we need to ensure that happens. The Government must use the resources, possibility and energy of government to sustain that model into the future. That is why we ask the Minister of State to look again at this proposal we put forward this evening. It is obviously not going to go anywhere tonight. The Government should look at it again and come back to it in the future. It can put its own label on it if it wants to. I do not care but it must do something for the small people who need a future in the small family farms the length and breadth of the country.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19