Professor Hannah Daly:

There is a range of policies that are now in place especially for the agriculture sector to achieve their more ambitious targets. The political and societal arrangements that led to these ambitious policies should be investigated in terms of how they differ from the process and circumstances that Ireland faces. There are strong differences so we cannot take for granted that it would be easy to implement these policies. There was a multiyear large consultation process between the food industry, farming organisations and environmental groups, which led to a collective agreement on very ambitious measures to both regulate and support the agri-sector to transform. Those agreements have entailed a carbon tax, starting in 2030 and growing to 2035, that is implemented in a way in which a significant proportion of that would be returned to farmers and that they would be supported to take measures to decarbonise. I understand that around 10% of agricultural land would be either rewilded or planted with forestry. In some cases, there would be buy-outs of the most polluting farms, by government. Ireland really needs to learn what were the political arrangements that allowed this to happen without it exploding into it becoming a political wedge issue or a culture war because, as has been seen in the media, and for the last five years we have discussed this in Ireland, when any consideration of strong cuts in farming emissions have been proposed, it is blown up even internationally. This is something we want to avoid. We want to avoid farmers being made a scapegoat or feeling like they are unsupported or unfairly blamed.