Mr. Trevor Donnellan:

I am head of economics at the national farm survey at Teagasc. Biodiversity is very much on our radar and agenda. We have begun measuring what we call habitat biodiversity with a view to developing an index of habitat biodiversity for farms in Ireland. One of the weaknesses historically of biodiversity data in Ireland is that they have tended to be collected in an ad hocway so we have information on biodiversity in particular pockets of the country at particular points in time. It is not a good means of being able to talk about what biodiversity looks like at a national level on an ongoing basis to measure changes that are happening in the aggregate. It is something we are beginning to do.

Historically, measuring biodiversity would have been a very expensive business because it would have involved sending people with expertise out to farms to see what was going on at those farms. Now, using remote sensing technologies this is becoming more affordable. Using an approach with the eye in the sky, which we have tested, has shown to be highly accurate in the case of habitat biodiversity. We will now have a capacity to show the different habitats that exist on different farm types in Ireland. This opens up opportunities to look at the relationship between those habitats, the types of activities happening on those farms and the farmers that are operating those farms That is part of the wider dataset in the Teagasc national farm survey. It is at the top of our list in progressing this issue. Once we have the data we can begin to model how these things might change over time.