Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the outset and with the indulgence of the Chair, I have a point to make from a personal point of view as a Teagasc client. My Teagasc adviser recently retired. I want to take this opportunity in this public forum to wish Mr. Christy Jones, who Dr. O’Mara probably knows, the very best of good luck in his retirement. I could never fault the service that I received as a client from Mr. Jones and indeed from Teagasc through him. I will take advantage of the opportunity to say that.

Dr. O’Mara is aware that we had the farm representative bodies before the committee. I asked them one question and I will ask Teagasc the same question. We are all aware of where CAP emanated from. It was initially introduced to ensure food security for the European population - to provide for good quality, highly traceable food, and plenty of it, that was affordable and cheap to the consumer. It was also to ensure that the farmers were able to run a viable operation through the schemes. CAP has evolved a lot. With every new CAP in recent times, we seem to be working more towards it becoming an environmental scheme. With Dr. O’Mara’s knowledge of the schemes and of the new proposed 2022-27 CAP, as primary food producers how do we get the right blend of the environmental aspect, the food production element and the compensation to the farmer that will ensure food security? From an environmental perspective, all the schemes seem to be taking an angle of reducing production. For example, the area of organics has been asked for reduced production and increased forestry which would be taking land out of production purposes. The organic schemes are compensating for less production. At the same time, we have massive population growth, even within the food-secure regions. At the present time, there are large areas of the world that do not have food security and large numbers of people who are hungry. After all that long-winded effort to ask the question, I will ask a simple question. How does Teagasc see, based on the CAP that is before us, that we can get to that happy halfway house where we will achieve our ambitions with regard to our climate goals and our environmental targets in a way that will ensure we do not end up back here with Teagasc and the previous guests who were before the committee where the topic of conversation is food security?