Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On slurry spreading, I heard what Mr. Callanan said about it being calendar based as opposed to based on weather conditions. There is a point in what he is saying which is understood. The problem arises when we have a wet autumn like this one and cattle are moved off the land a lot earlier. This year there is late grass but ground conditions are getting very bad. We could have a different type of autumn where it is colder with less grass but is still very wet. The cattle are going in early. We have seen it happen over the Christmas period or the period directly after Christmas that there is a dry spell and then, lo and behold, come the middle of January when it is time to go and spread, there are downpours again. That is the problem. It is not an easy one. Mr. Callanan referred to capacity, and I understand that, but it is very hard in terms of management for some farmers to work that. If cattle are brought in quickly and they are standing on slatted units, if they are there earlier than expected, we get to January, the date comes for spreading and better days may have passed in the week or two previous to that. I just want to raise that point.

I would also like the Department officials to deal with the issue of the derogation on pig slurry. My recollection is that we sought an extension of the derogation on spreading pig slurry about a year ago. I am open to correction on all of this. Where stands that? The number of units in the country has dropped but the units have got bigger. There is a particular problem with how we manage the slurry from those units. The IFA and others were worried about it a year or two ago and there was a derogation sought at that point. How can that be moved to a more sustainable basis?

My other question for the Department is about forestry. I am pleased to hear Mr. Coggins talk about farming and forestry. That has been a big bone of contention. I represent Laois-Offaly. In the Slieve Blooms there has been concern about forestry replacing farming. There is a particular problem in Leitrim, as I know from my colleague, Deputy Martin Kenny. Driving around Leitrim, we can see it happening, particularly with the widespread monocultural plantations of spruce.

In the context of the coming Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, reforms and the new CAP programme, is the Department developing proposals around having sustainable hedgerows such that farmers are rewarded for maintaining bulky, high hedgerows? They are one of the great sources of habitat and are very important for drainage and shelter. The people who planted them understood this hundreds of years ago but somewhere along the line the human race got so clever that we decided that what those people thought did not matter and we should just get the hedgerows out of the way. Teagasc advisers at one stage - I am not particularly having a go at Mr. Spink here - were saying to people to push them out of the way, and we closed up drains and moved those natural barriers out of the way. We took away habitats. Now we have to use more chemicals to spray the crops because there are no habitats to keep the little fellows happy, to keep the insects that are attacking crops under control. Is there a move in the Department to come up with specific proposals regarding sustainable hedgerows? I know there is a programme for planting more hedgerows, which is good.

I want to bring this to the officials' attention because I say this to the county councils the whole time. The county councils are allowing widespread destruction of hedgerows. In the conditions of planning permission for building a house, I cannot see why we do not require people to maintain the hedgerow in front of their house. Many people like showing off, so they want to bulldoze the hedgerows, or ditches as we call them down our way, out of the way and put up a bloody wooden palisade fence so everybody can see their house. We should be doing more to try to protect the hedgerows.

I will move on to Teagasc.

Some would say that the ship has sailed on beet production. I am not a soil expert but the witnesses are. Sugar beet was grown extensively in my part of the world. When sugar beet was being grown, whatever crop was sowed on the same land after sugar beet there was a great yield the following year. Sugar beet was a great rotation crop and it provided ground cover for six months of the year. I have often seen beet harvested right up to Christmas so the fields were covered for six months and, therefore, the crop has great potential for sequestration. Beet Ireland is a group that tried to regenerate interest in beet production but it has postponed such plans. Has research into beet production ceased? Has beet production been completely forgotten about? I firmly believe that soil quality and the environment are poorer without beet production. Also, farmers are poorer because beet production generated a handy cash crop, particularly after Christmas when there was not much else. Beet tops were also fed to cattle. We did not need as many slatted sheds because one could allow cattle and sheep to graze on the beet tops that remained after beet was harvested.

I have read reports that this country imports 90% of its vegetables. I know we cannot grow avocados. I would love if we could grow avocados, grapes and a whole lot of other varieties but we can grow a lot of vegetables. I have not got a sense from mainstream farming and the farming bodies that there is a great desire or shift in mindset. The carbon miles on what we eat in this country are unnecessary. Some people in vegetable production have said that we can grow 75% of our imports of fruit and vegetables. I ask the delegation to deal with that issue also.

I have one last question for Teagasc. Mr. Spink said in his statement that "commercial conifer plantations offer the greatest economic return for the landowner and the highest levels of carbon sequestration, which is related to the growth rate". He means that conifers grow very quickly so there is carbon sequestration. I contend that the practice clears the forest floor, kills all known germs and everything underneath, including animals, plant life and everything else. The practice also causes pollution in terms of water quality. Should we not move from monoculture conifer plantations to more sustainable forestry and put a premium on varieties that carry over from one generation to the next?