Mr. Eddie Punch:

In an overall philosophical way we agree that there is a need for a Common Agricultural Policy which creates balance between environmental and agricultural interests. That said, farmers have to be able to make a living as well. We would like to see farmers being able to benefit from renewable energy opportunities. This country has been very slow to help farmers to do that. Moreover, Europe also needs to have a coherent renewable energy policy. Unfortunately, it has been characterised by flip-flopping on policy and not knowing where it stands, for example, on biofuels. In Ireland, for example, the renewable electricity support scheme should support farmers to benefit from, for example, rooftop solar panels. We see there is potential in anaerobic digestion to create a win-win scenario in terms of water quality, emissions from slurry spreading and providing an economic benefit to farmers for the production of renewable heat and electricity. A lot of things could be done.

We need to get the balance right between dairy, livestock production and tillage. It is fair to say that the decline of some bird species can be linked with the poor performance of tillage in recent years and the fact that a lot of the regions where we traditionally had tillage have declined significantly. We have lost about 17% of the tillage area. That is part of the issue. If we want to have the right mix we need to have a balance between the sectors but we need to work on the basis that farmers can only play their part in environmental benefits if they are making money out of farming and agriculture. If farmers cannot make a living then one will not have the environmental benefits provided.