Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to go back to the comments the Commission representative made regarding monoculture. Perhaps there is a lack of understanding in this case. Let us consider the greatest problems we face. Most of our land is in grass. Therefore, it is as green as it is going to get. In the case of our cereal lands, the biggest problem we have is the size of our fields. They are rather small. In European terms, they are minuscule. They are fragmented. This means we are travelling long distances between fields. We do not have a choice of crops. We have barley, wheat and oats. Beans are rather marginal because they harvest late. Oilseed rape for oil is almost a non-runner. It would be wrong to go away from this meeting thinking that we have a choice, because we do not. Now, we are faced with ecological focus areas. It seems strange that we will be going back to setting aside land and tillage because of this, yet most of our land in the country is green anyway.

Another key issue we have does not really pertain to land use but to the age of our farmers. The active farming population in Ireland is dropping rapidly. When people hear the term "cross-compliance" in this country, all they think of is fines. We have a situation whereby our advice agencies are advising our farmers but it turns out that when cross-compliance is put in place, fines are being delivered. We need to move from a situation whereby cross-compliance is seen as a threat towards one where it is a help to farmers. The Commission representatives should not go away from this meeting thinking it is straightforward when they refer to monoculture and so on. We have a small cereal industry. Our field sizes are small and our land is fragmented. Ireland is unique across Europe because of these constraints. It is amazing that we have a tillage industry at all.