Sir, – The former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes wrote a paper on Irish agriculture in the early 1990s pointing out that Ireland could achieve 98 per cent of its agricultural output from 40,000 farms. We still have almost 140,000 farms.
Put simply, there are simply too many farmers trying to make a living out of a shrinking cake. Pumping another €100 million into the beef sector is not a solution. – Yours, etc,
JAMES DUNNE,
Rathfarnham,
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Dublin D16.