Dr. Liam Hanrahan:

The Conseil Européen des Jeunes Agriculteurs-European Council of Young Farmers, CEJA, is our European body. Our counterparts are the other young farmer member organisations that belong to CEJA. We have never had that feedback from them. Other members of that organisation are also looking for a derogation and have recently lost derogations. We already know that story. Their system is totally different and they are cognisant of the that. Anaerobic digestion also comes into it. In the European context of indoor systems, which many of these countries have, they have daily slurry and fresh slurry works much better for anaerobic digesters. We do not have that system here. We have slurry in the winter. It is said it can be stored, but the efficiency of the ammonia use is not as great. They have a significant advantage as regards investment in anaerobic digesters in Europe. They are a fantastic solution for generating electricity. We have a slight disadvantage there. They also have the tillage land to export the slurry to. Exporting slurry is a solution for those farmers, but it is not a solution in an Irish context in reality because the nutrients being exported are highly valuable. The situation the Senator described of exporting to anaerobic digesters and importing it back makes sense. We all realise the cost of fertilisers and in a grass-based system, the nutrient use efficiency is probably the most important part of the whole system.