Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will come back while I still have time. I can understand farmers being risk averse; they are right to be. Surely, however, agencies like Teagasc and Bord Bia that advise Government and farmers need to have ambition because if they are not doing so, of course the farmers will not get on board. It seems to me that we do the capacity to compete with our European neighbours and to increase that percentage right up, far beyond 7.5%. I am sure that people in Austria or Denmark would make the same argument that it is hard to do it. The idea that Ireland, with its tradition in agriculture, agricultural education and research, has this modest target which is being eclipsed by other countries that do not have anything like the tradition we have but which are far in advance of us does not make sense to me. We need to hear it from Teagasc, as well as from Bord Bia because the route-to-market side of it also is critically important. Unless we hear it from the witnesses, the farmers will not get on board. We will be asking ourselves in a few years' time why we are at 3% or 4%. We will be asking why do we still have huge problems associated with perhaps more conventional agriculture that we could have mitigated had we gone down a more ambitious route in 2021.