Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Would the Chairman like to come with me to a meeting with the Minister for Finance later?

I thank all the contributors for their questions. The beef and suckler cow sector is one of the main issues raised. That is understandable but it was not until Senator Mulherin and Deputy Murphy raised the issue that the climate change context was raised as well. Very often the Department is accused, rightly or wrongly, of not having joined-up thinking. It is imperative that anything we do, whether budgetary or at CAP level is consistent with the obligations we face under challenging targets for reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030. That is something I am acutely conscious of in the context of the sector.

An effectively coupled payment of €200 per cow is the demand, and although I have heard it described as a targeted payment on every cow, it is not the direction we should go in the context of our climate change obligations.

We need to make sure that, whatever we do, we are consistent with the direction of travel we have been going in the context, for example, of the beef data and genomics programme, BDGP, which aims to drive efficiencies in the herd and improve its genetic merit and I am conscious of that. I am in the middle of the overall budget figures. I cannot go any further than that but I am aware of the issues for the sector, as I am for the broader farming community. Anything done at any level has to be done within that framework, otherwise we would, rightly, be open to the charge that we were not being consistent and a coupled payment is not the direction we should consider travelling.

Senator Lombard asked if I see the climate change agenda as a threat to agriculture. It could well be but I also think we are starting from a position of strength in the debate. There is no one issue that will resolve all this.

Deputy Murphy asked about renewable energy, whether anaerobic digestion or solar panels. We have to be open to all of those initiatives, whether milk recording or BDGP, the use of sexed semen, protected urea or anaerobic digestors. The range of issues, from sequestration to new technologies to monetising the value of waste, will have to be invoked to enable us to meet the targets. It could be said that, with the exception of BDGP and the green low carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, the last CAP did not drive that agenda sufficiently. Certainly the next one will. What is on the table now is putting far more conditionality on payments in the future. The smart farm programme is a collaboration between the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, and the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and it shows that where farmers embrace these on-farm initiatives they deliver a good story in terms of sustainability but they also deliver from a financial perspective. They make the farmers more profitable. We need to work harder at demystifying all this talk about sustainability and talk about the practical things. For example, one of the biggest challenges we face almost immediately is ammonia emissions. Simple things like moving to the trailing shoe or the splash plate deliver very significant improvements, as does protected urea as opposed to calcium ammonium nitrate, CAN. I appreciate there is a price differential there but it has been suggested to me, and this is worth exploring, that if the volume of CAN or protected urea rose significantly then the differential might drop and there is a significant dividend from that. They are things we can do in bite-size approaches to the sustainability agenda. It will not necessarily be the new quota on the dairy side. I acknowledge what has been done by the dairy industry to anticipate the challenges but we will all have to do more.

The Department will have to lead. That is right because it would be financially punitive not to do so. The market is also saying we need to do this. That is increasingly the request in the markets we want to be in, where there are consumers with higher spending power who are asking about the sustainability credentials in the broader definition of sustainability, such as environmental and welfare issues, and anti-microbial resistance, which are all part of this.

Consumers in those markets with higher spending power are asking about sustainability credentials under the broader definition of "sustainability", including environmental sustainability, welfare issues, antimicrobial resistance and so on. All that is part of this agenda. As with farming more generally, we can find a solution within that framework that enables us to meet those targets, challenging as they are, while also protecting the family farm structure. Much of it goes back to the question of an adequate CAP budget.

Senator Lombard raised the matter of the TB forum. The challenge for that forum is to come up with evidence-based policy recommendations that will enable us to achieve the objective of eliminating TB by 2030. It is a substantial challenge and represents a substantial budgetary line in my Department on an annual basis. While the overall incidence of TB is going down, the size of individual herds is increasing significantly and, therefore, the cost of a herd outbreak is greater than it would have been in the past. The Department appreciates the efforts of farmers in this area over the years. We are on the cusp of achieving the complete elimination of TB but it requires a final push from everybody. The forum is the right thing at the right time and I have no doubt that its current members and Chairman will do a good job.

The Senator also referred to the fishing industry. In essence, what the fishing industry - unlike farming - faces in the event of a calamitous Brexit is having its field taken away. In essence, that is what is involved because we catch 60% of our most valuable stock, mackerel, in what is deemed to be UK territorial waters as well as 40% of our second most valuable stock. A full third of the total value of the Irish industry is in UK waters. In a way, that debunks the argument that the industry was short-changed in terms of EU membership. The Irish fishing industry benefitted from the fact that it could fish in other waters and make a profit. We are clued into this issue in the context of our Brexit negotiations and will work side by side with the fishing industry, both the catching and the processing arms, on it. Our position is exactly the same as that of the industry and we are working with all of the equally affected member states that have an exposure to catching stocks in UK territorial waters. We have fed our analysis into the Barnier task force and our position is shared by all of the programme officers. As I said earlier, I hope there will be a profitable outcome on it.

Some members raised the ANC issue. We allocated an additional €25 million in funding to that scheme this year, with €13 million going to mountain-type land, €9 million to severely handicapped land and €3 million to less severely handicapped land. That means that those farming mountain-type land will see their payments increase from €109.71 to €135 on the first 10 ha. Payments have issued to some farmers and others will receive payments as they meet the stocking requirement. Payments will increase from €95 to €112 for those farming severely handicapped land. This is a significant and focused increase. Senator Muherin referred to the fact that dairy farmers receive payments under the ANC scheme but tillage farmers do not, even though there are some tillage farmers on ANC-type land. To put that observation in a broader context, the challenge with regard to CAP reform is to direct resources such that they deliver the greatest dividend. Proposals on how those scarce resources can be best targeted are awaited from all of the farming organisations.

Deputy Eugene Murphy raised the issue of drainage schemes. I would love to have a better answer for him but, in the context of climate change, the suggestions in some quarters are to re-wet lands rather than drain them.