As this Bill seeks merely to provide county committees of agriculture with the necessary finance to carry on their services, I do not think that anyone in the House will wish to oppose it or deny the Minister all stages of it. The only question that arises is, perhaps, why there should be any necessity for such a measure. It is rather a strange thing that there is no ceiling whatever on rates, as far as other local services are concerned. County councils can strike a rate of 20/- in the £, 30/- in the £ or 40/- in the £ for other services but they are confined to statutory limits in regard to agriculture. I do not know why that should be. It does not, of course, cause very much inconvenience. I think the original upper limit was 4d. in the £. It was raised later to 7d. in the £ and it has been found necessary now to raise it to 10d. in the £.
I do not think the existence of a statutory limit either restricts or encourages county committees to expend money. It causes certain inconvenience to the Minister, who has from time to time to come into the Oireachtas and make requests for this power to enable committees to raise the rate. I am just raising the question as to why there should be any statutory limit at all.
It is hardly conceivable that farmers, who are already very rate-conscious, would be likely to demand such extensive services as would increase the rates out of all bounds. I do not think there is any possibility of that happening. As a matter of fact, farmers who are members of local authorities are very conservative in making demands which would increase expenditure, even when the benefit goes entirely to their own section of the community and to their own particular industry. Therefore, my feeling would be that the ceiling on rates for the Department of Agriculture should be removed altogether. However, that has not been considered necessary or desirable up to the present and I am not pressing the matter.
It may be wondered, perhaps, why there have been in recent years several substantial expansions of expenditure under this heading. The reason mainly is the expansion of agricultural advisory services—an increase in the number of advisory officers under the control of county committees. The Minister gave a figure which I think includes all advisory officers—poultry, horticultural and agricultural instructors.
I asked a question in the Dáil some time last year in regard to the number of agricultural officers, and I think at that time the number was given as 128. It had expanded in the few years previously and I think it has since been expanded. So far as agricultural advisers are concerned, they are increasing steadily in almost every county. In the county in which I am a member of the committee, there has been an increase over the past five years in the number of agricultural officers from one to four. That is to say, we have multiplied the number fourfold. That is in County Carlow, but I do not think the expansion has been as great in any other county. I think in that county we have possibly reached the maximum number that will be required. We have one agricultural instructor to every 800 farmers in the areas allocated to each officer. The Minister, presumably, had three parishes in mind when he was speaking, or probably fewer.
It is hard to regulate parishes in regard to counties because the boundaries do not coincide. I think there are only two parishes in the whole of my county having all their boundaries within the county area. We have allocated or allotted part of each area to each agricultural instructor and the system is working very satisfactorily. We are insisting on each agricultural instructor living within the area allotted to him. Sometimes difficulties arise in that matter but still it would be better to pursue it. I think, therefore, that it is necessary for other counties to follow the example of the County Carlow and to increase the number of officers, so that a small compact area will be allocated to each officer.
There is one question which arises in regard to this proposal to increase the rate and to the necessity which has arisen for increasing the rate. The Minister will recollect that a few years ago he intimated to the county committees of agriculture his intention to introduce a parish plan. Under that scheme he proposed that each three-parish unit would be allocated an agricultural adviser and that those officers would be paid directly by the Department. If that scheme was again to be introduced, it would probably mean a very considerable saving to the county committees and it would remove altogether the necessity for this Bill as the salary would probably be sufficient to meet all the expenses. Some of the county committees at that time pointed out the disadvantages in regard to the scheme—while it would save them a certain amount of money and while this money would have to be found by the central Exchequer, the scheme would also remove these officers from being under the direct control of the county committees and would place them under the direct control of the Minister.
That would seem to be highly undesirable. If a change in that respect is to be made, I think it would be absolutely necessary that local district committees or parish committees should be set up with statutory powers in regard to the local agricultural officer. The need for such local agricultural committees is apparent again at the present time. For example, if you have in a county four or five agricultural instructors, each with a small area allocated to him, it would be rather difficult for the county committee to keep in touch with each of those agricultural instructors and they may have contact with the county committee only through the county agricultural officer. Control by farmers or people engaged in agriculture would be somewhat far removed from those local agricultural officers.
It is true that each of them would be in close personal contact with individual farmers but, in addition to that, it would be desirable that there should be some local administrative body which would direct his activities, even if it was only from the point of view of the activities and efficiency of that local officer. It would be desirable that that officer should meet a committee that would have statutory powers and that he should make to it a monthly report of his activities and consult with it on schemes and ideas he would have for the coming months. Something in that direction should be introduced at an early date. It can be done by having a parish council in the parish and by giving that parish council certain statutory power in regard to the agricultural advisory service, or it can be done by setting up a district agricultural committee representative of the entire district, let it be just three parishes or whatever the area may be over which the agricultural officer may have jurisdiction. That is necessary if we are to have an official advisory service reaching into the most remote districts and available to every individual farmer, large or small.
The whole difficulty has been that the agricultural instructors never got to the majority of the farmers. The idea of one agricultural instructor covering an entire county was absurd. He reached only a very small number of the farmers and in many cases he very often confined his activities to the larger or perhaps the more efficient farmers, ignoring entirely the smaller farmers on the poorer mountainsides and on the poorer land generally. That position has been remedied to a great extent but, to make the position absolutely modern and efficient, it will be necessary to set up local agricultural committees, call them what you will, in every district and to have direct control over each local agricultural officer.
There is one other matter which perhaps does arise in regard to this Bill and that is the difficulty which agricultural advisers have in giving true advice to the average farmer in the conditions under which we live here. An agricultural adviser, if he is efficient and keeps up-to-date in regard to his profession, can advise a farmer how to grow the best crops, how to obtain the best yields and in regard to live stock in some respects. I am not disputing that, in all probability, his advice would be sound but he cannot make any attempt at advising farmers in regard to economics—in regard to the future prospect of any line of production in which the farmer is engaged. For example, he cannot tell the farmer that if he holds his cattle —it may be in the case of only a few cattle—for a month or two he will be adequately recouped. Very often, it is embarrassing to an agricultural instructor to go up on a farm and find that the farmer whom he had advised in the calf season to hold his cattle, has sold his cattle one or two months, or perhaps only a week, too soon. These things happen.
Again, it is embarrassing for the good ladies who look after the poultry to be told when they go into a farmer's homestead that the produce of the poultry department of the farm is absolutely worthless. It is rather discouraging for those instructors to try to give advice under such conditions. I know this is a very difficult matter. It is, of course, also embarrassing for the agricultural instructor who has advised a farmer in regard to the best methods of raising products for which there is a guaranteed price to find that the political head of the Department has glided gracefully, perhaps, into the Oireachtas wearing red feathers and a hula-hula skirt, to announce that the price of that particular commodity, whether wheat, milk, barley or anything else, has been drastically cut. The poor, unfortunate agricultural adviser has to bear the brunt of some of the criticism which farmers will voice when such a thing happens.
I feel that agricultural advisers as such, being appointed to advise the farmer in regard to the best methods of running his farm and give that advice in a voluntary way at the request of the farmer, should be in a position to inform the farmer in regard to economics. I do not think the Department tries to give their instructors up-to-date information in regard to the trends of markets or to the possibilities that there may be in any particular line of production. I think it is in that particular direction that the Department fails. They should advise their local agricultural instructors and keep them informed in regard to marketing practice and possibilities so that they could pass that information on directly to the farmer.
I think it is true to say it very often happens that the average farmer is much better informed in regard to the trend of matters than the agricultural instructor. That is something which should not happen. The agricultural instructor may be miles ahead of the farmer in regard to scientific knowledge, and his knowledge may be very useful, as most farmers are finding out, but in regard to economics generally, I think he falls very far behind the average farmer.
As far as we are concerned, we have no hesitation whatever in supporting this Bill which will provide additional finances for the local committees. The local committees are responding very well to the idea of increasing the advisory services. As a matter of fact, that is the main branch of their activities in which there has been a noted expansion of expenditure over the past few years. Most people will realise that it is the more desirable line because in the dissemination of up-to-date knowledge and its acceptance by the farming community, progress can be made.
It would be wrong to pass from this discussion without paying a tribute to the young farmers' movement—Macra na Feirme—which has certainly aroused amongst farmers, and particularly among the young farmers, a very ardent desire for increased knowledge on agricultural matters. That is a development we should commend, and it is one we hope will continue.