Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-186"
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"en.20010116.10.2-186"2
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"Mr President, I note that the last seven speakers in this debate come from the Group of the European People’s Party, so we have seven people anxious to talk while everybody else has dried up. It is an indication of the concern of this particular group for the problem we are discussing.
I want to thank Mr Parish for his contribution, the thorough research and the very extensive report he has produced. I was just thinking of my youth when I was a member of the Young Farmers of Ireland; I started my political career in that organisation. I remember a plan was produced which was based on two simple things: intensive advice and a little bit of financial incentive. It was based on the geographic unit of organisation, which was most popular in Ireland, it was a church community called the parish. It was the parish plan. So I started off my political life with the parish plan in my hand and today I have another Parish plan. It is much more comprehensive and, indeed, I have to confess that I do not see as many simple answers to the questions raised in this one as in my Young Farmers' organisation in Ireland 40 years ago.
Something that comes to mind is that we ought not to get carried away with emotion or lead people down the wrong path on this whole subject. The 1926 census in Ireland found that more than half of the entire population of the country was engaged in agriculture and yet the country did not produce surpluses and there were people short of food. There are still people harking back to the days when, as an Irish poet said: "every rood of ground maintained its man". However, we should not imagine that this was an ideal world in which to live. Over the years, as the number of farms was reduced and farmers became more efficient, food obviously became more available to the poor who could buy it at a lower cost. The reduced farm numbers have produced a lot of well-being in Europe. We should not forget that.
Since Ireland joined the European Union – I only mention Ireland because I am very familiar with what happened obviously, but you can draw lessons for other areas – our many small farms were reduced gradually in number. If it were not for the common agricultural policy, that would have been very painful.
It was a good thing that the number of farms was reduced and that we had the common agricultural policy to ease that. We must be concerned about the human problems that arise out of the squeeze-out of excessive labour, but at the same time, we should remember that the cost of food has been reduced. Emphasis, in the future, must be put on quality, while in my time limitless quantities were needed. Today we need more quality and we need to consider the environment. All these are things Mr Parish has underlined. But we should not offer the prospect of young, energetic people in greater numbers producing the quantity of food that Europe needs today because they will not eat it."@en1
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