Mr. Pat Cleary:

Soil structure is very important to us. We are mandated under the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions, GAEC, that we must maintain a minimum of 3.5% of the soil on soil organic matter. We do that within the tillage sector. Historically, farmers were mixed farmers and there was farmyard manure and rotation was more diverse. Tillage farmers now, and especially since the sugar industry went, have become involved in continuous tillage. That has had to change because there is a three crop rule and we must introduce a break crop in rotation. We do what is called minimal cultivation, so much soil is non-inversion. Anna May McHugh will not like hearing this but the plough is becoming obsolete in certain areas and some farmers are direct drilling. They are not even doing minimal cultivation. We do a nutrient management plan and the Department is mandated to look at our soil structure. We have analysis on that.

People may ask what the earthworm population has to do with soil but it is very important. If a farmer is not looking after soil and is undertaking continuous tillage without reintroducing soil organic matter, the earthworm goes away and the soil structure is dead. On my farm there is compost and I make it from green waste. We started doing it when we lost the sugar industry. It is not just the soil organic matter that has improved but our yields have been enhanced. It is a regulated sector and it should be controlled by the Department rather than others. There are five or six regulatory bodies that I am responsible to. It is crazy. With the tillage sector more than any other, soil structure is very important, as one will only get out what one puts in. If a farmer does not treat the soil correctly, yield will be lost and there is no money in that for us.