Mr. Jack Nolan:

I think farmers grow grain if the price is right. I do not think they would mind whether it was going to biofuel or malt barley. Premium products are not getting a high price at the moment. My understanding is that this is a by-product. That is the barrier. There is no price for farmers from which to make a decent profit margin. A lot of the land farmers are on is rented. The committee heard all this last week. They simply cannot afford it. Even farmers who are getting over 3.5 tonnes per acre of spring barley are not making a profit. The area of wheat, barley and oats has gone down by 10% from 2008 to 2016. That will continue. Farmers are following the price. Our dairy numbers are increasing because farmers see it as more profitable. There was pent-up demand at the end of quota and we have excellent dairy farmers who are soaking up some of the land that is becoming available.

As regards the climate change issues, we are looking at the cows. We had 1.43 million dairy cows in the last census. We are very good at growing grass.

We are breeding a cow that is good at converting that grass into milk. We have the economic breeding index. That was a success, so we now have a beef data genomic programme where we are looking at the suckler herd and trying to make the animal more efficient. We are grant-aiding farmers to use low-emission slurry spreading equipment, such as trailing shoes, dribble bars etc.

A major problem is that only 10% of our soil is at optimum fertility. We are low in lime and pH which means that we lose about 50% of the efficiency of the use of fertilisers by being at the wrong pH. This year is the year of sustainable grassland supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Part of that is the Teagasc 10t, which aims to get farmers to grow 10 tonnes of grass per hectare and use it, whereas at the moment the average is only about 6 tonnes per hectare. There is huge scope there.

Growing crops on marginal land would not be a good idea because farmers are losing money when growing on good land. Marginal land can be used for grass or other purposes but not to grow a crop because farmers would not make money. If they cannot make money where it is dry and with a better climate and so on, it would be very difficult.

The profitability of biodigesters will vary. Grass and profitability will depend on the tariff that is paid in. There is none there at the moment. People are not using it. If the tariff were correct, there could be, or if the process gets better and we get better at growing it, there may be something there, but not at the moment.

The other thing with anaerobic digesters is that we do not reduce the amount of nutrient, meaning that phosphorus and nitrogen would still be applied to land after it. However, we could transport it further and perhaps get money from producing electricity from the gas.