Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives from Teagasc. I wish to be associated with Senator Boyhan's remarks and wish Professor Boyle the best in the future. I have no doubt our paths will cross before his imminent departure but in case they do not, it has always been a pleasure working with him on occasions like this.

I have a couple of questions and top of the list is one about hedgerows. Senator Boyhan got in there before me. Following on from that, as somebody from Westmeath, which is not a Golden Vale-type area, I can confirm the figures given relating to field sizes and the amount of hedgerow. While I welcome the science and research on this area and all other areas, I would put some pressure on for timelines on when we might be in a position to say how much sequestration and storage there is per metre or kilometre of hedgerow. When do the witnesses envisage that we will be able to get down to individual farm audits and identify the actual carbon footprint of an individual farm, for example, an 80-acre suckler farm in Westmeath with ten fields of 2.5 or 3 ha each and hedgerows everywhere? When will we be able to identify an exact figure of what storage and sequestration is in the soil if it is a grassland grazing suckler farm? What storage and sequestration value do the hedgerows have? Will we be able to identify that this farmer is carbon-positive, neutral or even negative? How far away are we from that?

I would like to hear Teagasc's views on carbon leakage. While the witnesses have their job to do and are doing a fine job and we will collectively tick the boxes we have set for ourselves, are we creating an opening for carbon leakage? If we rewet all our bogs, reduce our herd, do whatever is asked of us and become carbon-neutral by 2050 but the beef requirements of the world are being met by Brazil, which has knocked down a hundred times more rainforest than we have wet bogs in the same length of time, that would not make sense in the overall global picture. While the science is the witnesses' end of things, I would like to hear comments on that.

I would also like to hear their comments on the fact that every document and proposal I have seen in the past six months has contained the statement "stable national bovine herd". Can the witnesses explain what they mean when they use that term?

I would also like to hear their opinion on an article I read in last week's Irish Farmers Journalby Colm McCarthy regarding where carbon emissions are allocated.

Mr. McCarthy's argument was that we are production as opposed to consumption and we are allocating the carbon footprint to production whereas with a lot of product that is exported, its carbon footprint is credited to the consumer. I would like the Department's opinion on that. If the people who are consuming our beef were responsible ultimately for its carbon footprint, it would take much of the pressure off the agricultural sector.