Farming is ‘far from declining’ declares Minister of Agriculture (1966)

The minister, who was speaking at the Agrarian Society dinner at Queen's University, during this week in 1966, said that were those who spoke of agriculture as a declining industry, nothing could be further from the truth of the matter.

Dealing with future trends Mr West said that even though food production would grow in volume, it would become “an ever smaller part of our total production and would command a smaller proportion of the total national income”.

Pointing out that agricultural policies in all the industrialised countries were concerned with improving the incomes of farmers, Mr West said that those policies had three main parts.

“The first was by direct government intervention to support farmers' market prices or to reduce their costs by grant-aid. In our own case that all came within the ambit of the annual farm price review for the United Kingdom as a whole.

“The second part of agricultural policies today was that of improving the underlying structures of the industry, to increase the size of farms by assisting the process of amalgamation of very small units and to assist in the movement of people to other occupations where farms were simply too small to offer any real prospect of a satisfactory livelihood by modern standards for the occupier.

“The United Kingdom has not had any specific policy of this kind until recently. The proposals in the Agricultural Bill at Westminster included provisions for pensions and grants to be available for farmers giving up their land for amalgamation and for assistance to those who carried out those amalgamations.

“As far as Northern Ireland is concerned this would make available financial assistance to those who were caught up in a trend which was not being initiated by the government, but which had been going on for a long time.”

The Minister of Agriculture continued: “It will inevitably go on into the future and whereas over the last 10 years our average size of full-time farm has increased from about 40 acres to 60 acres of crops and grass I would expect the average size of a full-time farm to be in the region of 100 acres 10-15 years hence.

“This of course will still be a very small farm compared with the average in Great Britain and therefore the size of the farm business on these farms must be as large as possible. This brings me then to the third aspect of policy and this is the one for which my ministry is largely responsible.

“This part of policy is that of actually improving the standard of farming and thereby enabling the maximum number of farmers and their families to make a satisfactory livelihood in the industry; in fact, to reduce as far as possible the need for people in farming to-day to seek other occupations.

“It would be foolish to stand in the way of economic necessity but I think we can regard our research, advisory and educational services in the broadest sense as making possible a prosperous rural society in Northern Ireland.”

The spearhead of their work would be in education, said the minister.

“It was in these fields that the students in agricultural science today will make their contribution to our future progress. The spearhead of our work will be in education. This must be backed by a continuing programme of applied research.

“The farmer of to-morrow must start with sufficient material resources; he must have access to a farm of sufficient size and have enough capital to equip it.

“All the more essential therefore that he was trained to use these resources scientifically and on sound business lines.

Mr West concluded: “The agricultural graduate with an ability to communicate his knowledge and new ideas to these young men will be. an essential key to the future progress of farming and he will be given the best facilities that we can provide in' our agricultural colleges throughout the province.”