Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Organic Farming: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Jackie CahillJackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the committee, I thank the officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for engaging with us today on the topic of organic farming. We have had two sessions thus far on this matter. There is a significant amount of work to be done to up the percentage of land we have in organic farming use. As I said in a previous session, it has a significant and important role to play in reducing our emissions from commercial farming.

Deputy Carthy's point regarding commonages is one that needs to be taken on board. For someone to be debarred from an organic scheme because he or she is farming commonage land does not make sense. There are many issues to be addressed. Earlier, the issue of there being only one purchaser for beef cattle into the organic system was raised. That has to be rectified. It baffles me how, in the context of the Competition Authority, that situation was allowed to develop. We had an independent operator in my county, which was bought out by a large player in the industry. I cannot understand how that situation was allowed to develop.

This is a subject to which we will be returning. There is a great deal of work to be done in the area of organic farming. I again thank the officials from the Department and all of our other witnesses for engaging with us today. The next public meeting will take place at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 29 June 2021, when we will hear from the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority. We discussed the details in that regard during yesterday's private meeting. The view of the committee was that we should deal first with the topic of horse racing but the secretariat informed me that it is necessary to give ten days notice to witnesses. As a result, that topic will be dealt with at our meeting on 6 July. We will have two meetings next Tuesday, the first of which will be with the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and which will commence at 9.30 a.m.

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