Mr. John Muldowney:

I will offer a high level comment from the perspective of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Last summer, Food Wise 2025 was published. Sustainability is seen to be at the heart of how Food Wise 2025 works. The Department's commitment in this regard is evident. We have set up an environmental sustainability committee that includes the various Departments and agencies that have an involvement. The aim is to try to monitor and oversee progress on sustainability targets.

In the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine significant measures have been put in place under the rural development programme. These are driving sustainability at farm level. A sum of €1.4 billion is in place for the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme. Farmers participate in GLAS to try to encourage better land management and fertiliser use on the farm. Another headline scheme is the beef data and genomics programme to try to drive down the emissions intensity of our beef herd. The average beef herd owner in Ireland is no rancher; the average herd is 14 cows. This is the type of farming system we are trying to foster in the rural landscape in Ireland.

People might argue about the merits of growing more cereals or more arable production, but that would be at the cost of our significant carbon pool in the grasslands. The average carbon pool per hectare in grasslands is approximately 200 tonnes. In tillage, the corresponding figure is 50 tonnes. That will be released over a number of years if we convert to that type of land use. Again, there is the question of balance in all of this. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is engaging with the horticulture sector and has significant investment schemes in horticulture to try to ensure the competitiveness of the sector in terms of potatoes and vegetables and everything that happens there. We are looking at all of these options.