Mr. Michael Ewing:

I do not think we can. Food Wise 2025 is a pathway to serious problems for the future. I do not think it is possible. We can achieve it, but it will cost us big time both financially and environmentally. It will have a cost for the water quality in Ireland and for biodiversity. We have had a decline in farmland birds of between 70% and 90% over the past 30 years. This is enormous. There are reasons for this, and many of them relate to the way in which we farm now compared to how we farmed before. People spoke about the size of farms and stated that people were living hand to mouth to a degree in farming, and I totally accept this, but we should allow for the fact that an aspect of farming is about our culture, our rural environment and our rural communities. I live in a small rural community, and these issues are very important to individual people and communities. We need to recognise this and provide for these people to continue to be on their farms and to live in vibrant communities. Leitrim is probably the extreme case. Pension funds are coming in and buying up land to grow forestry and basically closing down farms and communities. This is not a good thing for the future.

I do not know whether committee members can see the little badge I am wearing. It represents the sustainable development goals, of which there are 17. We should be thinking in holistic terms with regard to agriculture. It is not isolated. It is part of a bigger picture of our society. We should be thinking in these terms and in terms of the 17 goals and how we can achieve them all together as one thing. Dr. Crowe spoke about at the very beginning about the conversations we need to have. These are realistic conversations between farmers who are part of our community and environmentalists who are part of our community. It is about every aspect of our community speaking together about bringing all of these goals into the one picture and not people just picking off little bits and stating they want to make money as farmers. Farmers deserve to make money. They are custodians of 75% to 80% of our land surface and they should be supported in what they do, but they should also realise that what they do is important to everybody else also. This is not just with regard to food production but protection of our natural wealth.

I will come back very briefly, if I may, to an aspect of the marine sector, which is shell fisheries. This is very unregulated in this country and the way in which licensing and shell fisheries are conducted is a very serious issue for us. They will impact on climate change in due course, perhaps not at the moment but they will in terms of a number of factors.

Deputy Kenny spoke about the issue of consumption and production, and I totally agree with every word he said in terms of the throwaway society we have created. This is a major part of the problem in terms of climate change. We produce far more than we actually need and we produce it in a way that will not last. All of these aspects of our economic system contribute to the issues we now face in terms of climate change. I could go on and on about this but I think the Deputy understands and his point was well made.