Professor Alex Evans:

I might add a word on the training. The green cert or equivalent is a vital part of people's learning. A basic understanding of how things work on the farm from the environment to all the other issues is an absolute requirement. I commend Teagasc on the work it does in this area. It has a great network of colleges throughout the country.

The other great learning tool at farm level is these discussion groups from which some get tremendous benefit while others are a bit more reluctant. The longer we stick at it, the more people will buy into it. That is a great tool. It is a great achievement for Ireland to have its farmers talking in groups. The discussion group is the opportunity for knowledge transfer between practitioners but also between greater experts and the practitioners in the discussion forum. That is where the newer ideas on research and findings are brought to the coalface.

As we go up the line to people who manage the farms or parts of industries and processes, we are looking at people with bachelors or masters degrees or higher. Maybe when we get to a higher level, we are looking at researchers in universities or companies who are clustering together and possibly drawing down large funds from the EU to generate the new knowledge. We get a lot of visitors to Ireland and I am sure the committee has met them. They are quite impressed with the diversity of education and knowledge opportunities we have that fill the span I described. It is critical that we keep up each and every one of them.

Agriculture will be better off if we take the knowledge we have and apply it, but in the fullness of time, that will not be enough. We need the new knowledge to produce new products and to take care of the new challenges. We need to keep pushing out this large continuum of education for people at all different levels. We all have a role in that.