Professor Ray Bates:

What I am recommending is based on scientific projections by climate models. In my PowerPoint presentation, I presented some slides from the last IPCC report that showed the projections for the latter part of the century. These are consistent with later projections. The Mediterranean countries, according to the projections, will have temperatures in summer 4% higher than at present, and the amount of precipitation will be very much reduced, perhaps by 50%. If these projections turn out to be true, agriculture in the Mediterranean countries will be severely affected. In other words, the countries will not be able to feed themselves. Our climate will be much less severely affected and our agriculture sector, from an overall Union perspective, would be a resource that would be able to feed Europe, but not necessarily with the kinds of food we produce now. The Irish climate would be a vital resource and Irish agriculture could be modified to produce what is needed, in so far as it is possible with the changed climate, in order to feed the countries short of food.

Given the climate model projections, agriculture must be considered not in terms of individual countries but in the overall European context. Therefore, it would be justifiable for the committee to advise the Government that it should consider seriously appealing to the European Union to consider agriculture not in terms of individual countries but in terms of its being a European resource for European food security.