Mr. Bill Callanan:

We can come back to the Deputy regarding the support for hedgerow management because it does include planting but also coppicing. We can send on information on the penetration by agri-environment scheme in terms of those numbers if they are of any use. Ms Fay might comment on the actual computed value of the chopping of straw, which is quite modest. I think we chopped 0.03 of a megaton last year. We had about 3,500 farmers, €8.5 million and about 35,000 or 36,000 ha of chopping with the likes of oat straw being one of the main crops going into it but a lower rate was available for the likes of oilseed rape, etc. There are two benefits in terms of chopping straw. One is that you are incorporating carbon back into the soil while the other is that in these systems where you are doing the likes of minimum tillage with straw going in, the soil is much more friable and more easily tilled for future sowing. The Minister had an engagement with farm bodies, which I left to come here. I was talking to a tillage grower on the way out who said he has been minimum tillage for the past eight or nine years. I said that I presumed that he was an applicant under the straw incorporation scheme and he said "Yes". He told me that it was amazing. He said he was sceptical in the beginning but that how quickly the land where straw was incorporated dried out and could be tilled and managed was something to behold. He is a member of Irish Grain Growers and was a big advocate. I said that I presumed that diesel prices made it attractive and he said "Yes". He said he had taken a plough and tractor out of the system in terms of his tillage operation as a consequence of the better management of soils and how to improve the structure of soils through the likes of straw incorporation, etc.