Mr. Jer Bergin:

Agriculture has been the only sector that has reduced emissions - by approximately 10%, along with an actual increase in production - since the Kyoto protocol in 1990. We can continue on that path with the best advice and technology available. It cannot be done in a vacuum. If we do not do it, then someone else will do it at a higher environmental cost. That is the quandary that has to be overcome in this process.

Regarding the fodder crisis, I would be careful about ascribing individual weather events to the overall problem of climate change. Climate variability exists. We had an unusual situation with a bad summer along with a late spring. We often have late springs and bad summers. Speaking to older farmers and members of the association, they tell me about 1947 and the bad harvests in the 1980s. One cannot compare the effect of weather events in temperate climates to the droughts we have seen in the United States affecting grain production and elsewhere. We are quite resilient and are well on the way to solving the fodder crisis.

Our fundamental belief is that the overall solution to the food security problem is international agreements. Agreements that constrain our food production are not a contribution to the solution, however. The global middle classes will increase by 3 billion over the next 30 years. That is the zone for which we are producing and selling to. If temperate agricultural production zones like Ireland do not step up to the plate in this area, it will put far more pressure on food security in more environmentally challenged areas. I have a concern about Ireland deciding to constrain its food production to lead the way when in fact it would have the opposite effect. I believe we need to take a more pragmatic approach.