Mr. Pat McCormack:

I thank the Chairman for his kind opening remarks. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. I am joined by our general secretary, Mr. John Enright. We will address the committee on climate change issues related to agriculture. During my term as president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, ICMSA, this will be one of the biggest challenges for our industry and our members. Obviously the Mercosur deal and Brexit provide their own challenges, and income volatility is an ongoing challenge.

Not that many years ago, faced with the abolition of quotas, we set out an ambition in Food Harvest 2020 to increase production by 50%. We have virtually delivered that by 2017. We then progressed to the Foodwise 2025 targets. They include: an ambition to increase the value of agrifood exports by 85% to €19 billion; to increase the value-added by 70% to €13 billion; to increase the value of primary production by 65%; and to create 23,000 jobs in the indigenous agrifood industry, spread across every community and parish in the country. This ambition is realistic when a 50% increase in the global population is anticipated between 2013 and 2050. No more land is becoming available for agricultural production. With the demand represented by roads, housing and forestry, land is a dwindling resource.

The issue is climate change. That is the challenge we are here to discuss. As I am the second horse out of the gallops, Mr. Healy has already covered a lot of the ground. The reality is that we have the best dairy production in Europe from a climate perspective. As Mr. Healy said, our beef industry is the fifth best within Europe. As such, we are in a good place to sell Irish agriculture in the context of global climate concerns.

The challenge arises from the fact that we export 90% of our output. A lot of our footprint is generated in feeding other populations around the globe. The way those emissions calculations are calculated and distributed needs to be assessed. I refer in particular to the distribution of that carbon footprint. Why put a squeeze on the diary industry in the most efficient place in Europe for dairy production, only to move production to somewhere that is less efficient than the Irish dairy farmer? Globally, we all live under the one bubble from an environmental point of view. That has to be borne in mind. Regardless of facts and figures, any suggestion that we produce in a less efficient manner raises serious questions.

Farmers have invested a lot in climate conditions. There have been almost 12,000 applications to the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, for low-emission slurry spreading. That is one of the areas where there can be a climate benefit for commercial farming. Farmers have become very aware of minimising nitrogen surpluses and nitrogen losses. I refer to greater utilisation of clover. Mr. Healy mentioned mini-tilled cultivation and better manure and slurry storage facilities. During the last six months, when returns from dairy produce increased, right across the rural construction industry there was a drive by agriculture to put facilities in place to improve farm working conditions and protect the environment.

Farmers have invested significant sums of money in the economic breeding index, EBI, from a dairy perspective, to increase efficiency and capability around the production of the quantities of milk solids that are needed and others in more challenging terrain have planted forestry to the betterment of the environment. From a renewable energy perspective, we believe there should be greater emphasis on farm families. The network is in place but grid connection needs to be practical and affordable. In terms of renewable energy generation, the installation of solar panels on the roofs of sheds would be to the benefit of the environment and also to the farm families that are trying to remain in farming and make a viable income in rural Ireland. There would be no additional visual impact, environmentally, because the infrastructure already exists.

Another challenge in terms of the climatic footprint is distribution and this will need to be assessed to a greater extent. We are equipped to produce food for the global market but the environmental challenges around distribution need to be addressed. I referred earlier to the need for greater use of farm sheds in respect of renewable energy generation. The bio-economy needs to be driven through farm-scale incentivisation and also incentivisation from a tax perspective.

In regard to the environmental schemes, I agree with Mr. Healy that the GLAS scheme needs to be opened up to the commercial farmer. Only 10% of our soil is at the optimum pH level. Time and again we have made submissions seeking that the use of lime be covered under the GLAS schemes. In the past, GLAS has been very restrictive on the commercial farmer. If it was a requirement of GLAS that a farmer increase the pH level of the soil so there would be greater and more efficient utilisation of the chemical fertiliser that would be spread and this, in turn, would benefit our water courses in a very short timeframe. It would also provide a bang for the buck for the farmer.

There is no denying that there are challenges presenting in terms of climate change but there will also be benefits for rural economies and rural farm families. As president of the ICMSA I have a responsibility, as have all elected people, to ensure that commercial farming is in a position to continue when climate change is put to bed. We need to sell ourselves well. The key issue going forward will be the footprint in terms of distribution.