Mr. Clive Carter:

I will speak to Deputy Eamon Ryan's comments on cutting production on the intensive farms in the south east and moving money to the north west.

I do not think that is a good idea at all. How would the farmers in the south east survive? That would be cutting their payments and cutting production, moving the money away. We would be advocating for more money to go to productive farmers who are trying to implement better sustainability measures. At the end of the day we have to produce food. We cannot just cut production. The idea of this committee was to get stakeholders involved. My view would be to try to increase or maintain the level of food production in each sector and also try to mitigate these things by trying to improve the emissions from each sector. Cutting production would have a negative effect for the economy and for everyone. We have heard a lot about rural economies and the benefit of agriculture to those economies. We should not try to cut production to effect change in our carbon footprint when we can do it using other technologies and other systems. We in the arable sector have been advocating that being carbon neutral or carbon positive can benefit both worlds. This is something that should be looked upon rather than just cutting production.

I would say also that Meat Industry Ireland have mentioned about the grass-based system, but could there be a benefit to more intensive use of cereal rations? I read a report recently that more intensive rations and more intensive finishing of animals has had a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions due to earlier finishing times. Could this be an area that could be looked at to promote our own feeds?

Reference was made to the origin of food and the origin of meat and dairy. Currently we are importing 60% of our feed imports for animals. How can we guarantee the traceability of Irish produce and label it as fully Irish when 70% of that comprises GMO and imported grains. We should be looking towards producing more of our own feeds for animals. As the Chairman said, in the past ten years all sectors - dairy, arable etc. - have come a long way and made great ground in trying to reduce their carbon footprint and still are. It is a slow road and there is a long way to go.