The second section on Breeding for Higher Milk Yields advocated the extension of the Premium Bull scheme to take account of milk yield and butter-fat content, and the development of cow-testing schemes, on the basis of local-based Cattle Breeding Associations. Creamery managers should be ex-officio members of such associations, and training schemes developed.

The third section on Production of Store and Fat Cattle is quite short, and states the problem of British policy on fat-cattle subsidy, with its 3-month residence requirement, generating an artificially high demand for 'forward stores', but takes it as a necessary constraint. JJ's arguments about the need to negotiate this politically, to get parity with Northern Ireland, and build up stall-feeding with consequential tillage-enhancement, was not at this stage taken on board. It was simply recommended that stores be de-horned for ease of transport. The idea of developing a trade in veal, on the continental pattern, was entertained.

The fourth and final section on Feeding of Cattle homes in sharply on the key issue: winter feed supplies. No breeding programme will be any use unless the animals are fed adequately; and estimated extra 150 gallons of milk annually per cow was feasible with proper feeding alone. A radical change in grassland management was called for, with production of silage, supplemented by hay, roots, straw and green forage crops. This section contained what JJ had been campaigning for during the previous decade.

The availability and suitability of home-produced feed was noted, including procedures for storage of potatoes as feed. The utility of wheat offal was promoted. The seasonality of supply question, and accompanying price fluctuations, was recognised as a problem, and addressed by a procedure of regional hatcheries to make available day-old chicks from licenced disease-free suppliers.

Attention was given to the educational aspect: the role of the Poultry Instructors, the RDE (Rural Domestic Economy) Schools and the Munster Institute. The problem of male farmer recognition of the earning potential of poultry as a farm enterprise was addressed, and the need for skillful and energetic propaganda to induce a change of outlook.

In this context, Henry Kennedy had reservations about tampering with the role of the Munster Institute by requiring an entrant to have spent a year at an RDE School.

The existing situation as regards legislation was surveyed relating to control and prevention of disease; special attention was given to bovine tuberculosis, this being transmissible to humans. Legislation also covered animals in transit, fresh meat, abattoirs, pigs and bacon, and public health.

Existing services included Veterinary College, under the Department of Agriculture, the Veterinary Research Laboratory, dispensaries in the 'congested districts' and private practices. These were assessed and quantified; it was noted that there was little uptake of the dispensary services, and private practice service distribution bore little relationship to the livestock density.

The defects in the existing services were analysed; lack of co-ordination between Departmental services required under different Acts was identified, and the uneven geographical distribution of the private sector discouraged farmers from availing of its service.

Some specific disease-prevention measures were identified, particularly vaccination. In a lengthy section on 'reorganisation' it was proposed that the State services be all brought under the Department of Agriculture, and that attention be given to educating the farmers in good management practice, with registration of tubercle-free herds. Veterinary laboratory services should be decentralised and brought closer to their clients.

As regards the Veterinary College it was recommended that students should serve an apprenticeship with a practice in the field, to gain clinical experience, and that the MRCVS qualification be recognised de facto as a University Degree, enabling postgraduate research to be done in TCD and UCD, under the general direction of a Veterinary Research Council.

Attention was drawn to the prevalence of quack remedies, and a licencing scheme was proposed for purveyors of veterinary medicines.

JJ added a reservation to the effect that he felt that the Veterinary Research Council should include at least one medically-qualified person, to look after the public health aspect. Barton considered that laboratory facilities should remain centralised while being enhanced. Kennedy in an extended minority report advocated that the practitioners should be employed by co-operative organisations at district level, with support from local government.

The earlier Interim Reports were taken as being part of the overall submission, it being understood that they dealt with the priority issues. This report was regarded as being more long-term and strategic.

It covered the background factors influencing the general pattern, the historical background of policy, the prospective international policy framework, the place of agriculture in the national economy, summary of data for policy-making, and then a detailed exposition of the recommended policies. followed by conclusions and recommendations. The climatic and physical conditions in general were recognised as favourable, including accessibility to the main market. There was however diversity of soil and physical conditions, giving rise to a wide range of optimal productive systems. There had however never been a scientifically-based soil survey. The main obstacle to productivity was lack of capital and credit, and the supply and marketing processes were poorly organised. Farming tended to be extensive rather than intensive; savings went towards getting more land rather than towards capitalising the productive process.

The analysis of the historical background covers the price-driven shift from cereals to livestock consequent on the development of US grain production, the impact of the first world war, the war of independence and the economic war. The ending of the economic war in 1938 however left in existence certain measures which had been established in Britain for domestic purposes, the principal one being the subsidising of fat cattle production in Britain, which had killed the market for Irish finishers, and pushed production into forward stores.

The analysis of the contemporary framework builds on the free-trade assumptions implicit in the Atlantic Charter and it was anticipated that it would be in the common interest of both Britain and Ireland to abandon the restrictionist policies of the 1930s. The work of Sir John Orr on nutrition in Britain was adduced in support of the recognition of the scope of the opportunity presented for the build-up of the export market for high-protein food supplies. The effect of protectionism on the home market was examined critically.

The place of agriculture in the national economy is somewhere between India (where two families produce food for three) and the USA (where one family produce food for five). There has been a nominal increase in output per person in Irish agriculture, but consequent on declining numbers producing an inelastic total output, so that the volume of exports and real national income have not expanded. The expansion of industry dependent in imported raw materials has necessitated expansion of agricultural exports to pay for them. Expansion of industry based on raw material produced at home would be healthier, in particular the dead meat trade, but this has not happened.

Agricultural incomes can only be increased without reduction in numbers if there is substantial increase in productivity per person and of exports. National industrial development will be favoured if the agricultural community is prospering and able to buy its products. The USA based her considerable industrial development on successful exploitation of the agricultural export market.

One can see here, and in what follows, the influence of JJ's earlier work, as expressed in his Seanad speeches, and various critical papers and articles in the 1930s, and indeed in the 'Nemesis of Economic Nationalism'.

International comparisons indicate that the performance of the best Irish farmers are as good as the best in Europe, but the overall average performance is bad, in terms of both output per man and per acre. This calls for explanation; agricultural science has advanced much further than agricultural practice. Few farmers' sons attend agricultural schools. Savings tend to go into acquisition of more land, for extensive development, rather than into capital-intensive production from existing land. Irish technical skill and marketing organisation have lagged seriously behind those of other countries supplying the UK market. The report goes on with a detailed exposition of the recommended policies. It notes in passing that wherever agriculture is dominated by small farms in proximity to industrial markets, they earn their money by livestock production, using as raw material fodder crops they cultivate themselves. In contrast, where smallholder produce grain as a cash crop, earnings are low. Grain production as a cash crop is intrinsically a large-scale mechanised operation.

The primary aim of post-war policy should be the improvement of the fertility of the land by cultivating grass as a crop, in rotation with fodder crops, re-seeding the pastures with selected mixtures of grasses and clovers, according to the practice known as 'ley farming'. Information about this needs to be conveyed to the present generation of farmers, and arrangements made for the education of their successors.

(This compartmentalised approach to researching what should be a closely-coupled integrated system was a recipe for disaster; it reflected a centralist and reductionist philosophy; insofar as the philosophy was eventually expressed in the structure of the Agricultural Institute when it finally got set up in 1959, it indeed proved to be open to question, and I viewed it critically during the 70s in my Irish Times column. RJ Sept 2000)

He also wanted improved support for plant breeding and animal nutrition research, improved breeding services for cattle and pigs, compulsory tillage to be ended, no limits in imported feed, bacon factories to be take over by the co-ops, grants for capital farm improvements and an Agricultural Development Council to be set up.

The analysis of these differences in views among the experts, and the understanding of their motivations, I will have to leave to others. I can however suggest that the main report, with which JJ was associated, reflected a philosophy which understood the need to treat agricultural production and marketing as a complex integrated system, best worked in large-scale managed units, and which aspired to bring around the mass of the individual small farmers to this view, while appreciating the obstacles arising from the essential anarchy of decision-making in small units.