Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The market is not going to deliver for the Irish farmer. That is clear. That is why we have CAP. CAP is the right approach to support Irish farming. But CAP is now changing and we in the next two years have the chance to change it and we have a flexibility because it is back to the country. The reality is that if one looks at a range of sectors, not just farming, they are not commercial. I am told by commercial foresters that forestry in the south east can be very commercial but is just not commercial in the north-west. It is one of the reasons why if one wants to develop that continuous cover which takes a longer time and has biodiversity and all sorts of other gains, the market will not pay for it and we have to have a CAP system that will. The same would apply for just about every form of agricultural production, particularly for farmers in the north west. The big issue in our national planning framework is to try to avoid that depopulation, particularly in the north west. CAP should involve targeting certain areas.

A friend of mine is a plant geneticist and he always makes a simple point that Ireland's advantage is that we are good at grass.

This is a natural grass-growing environment. Grain is a grass and, while we should not leave land uncovered, we should use grain to feed animals. We might consider feeding grain to human beings and then look for direct connections between high quality arable farming and the consumer, with our neighbours in the United Kingdom. There is a market for it. It would be more efficient than feeding a cow to produce the protein we need. The maths, physics, ener0gy and ethics associated with food production suggest a grain-based diet is what we should go for. We could be really good at it.