Mr. James Healy:

Regarding communication, I would not like to cast any aspersions but I think all the farm organisations would accept we probably were behind the curve in getting our message across and ensuring we tell the full truth of agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions, whether the issue is production or whatever else. As farm organisations, we probably were behind the curve when it came to ensuring that our message got out there. We are improving on this. I was listening to the radio earlier today, around lunchtime, and there was a discussion about climate change. One of our members dialled in to the radio show and gave a very eloquent and understandable explanation of the farming side of things. It is about making spokespersons and advocates of all our members, not just me or Mr. Dillon. It must be all farmers. Taking society as a whole, all young people, no matter what they choose to be, can advocate for the environment, animal welfare or clean water. They can support whatever has taken their hearts as something they wish to do, whether over social media or through written or various other methods. We as a farm organisation need to get ahead again and ensure that our members are armed with the information and the ability to get the farming message across. This comes back to better use of all the technologies that are out there.

Regarding the green cert, and having gone through the process myself only recently, the content is certainly there and contained within it. Moreover, there has been a recent curriculum change to advance it even further.

The people educating our young farmers in our Teagasc colleges certainly have a love of agriculture but they also have an understanding of where it is going, the challenges facing it and the message they need to get across to our young farmers and what they need to instil in them.

I could not speak on the need for advisers on the ground once one leaves agricultural college but any of the Teagasc staff with whom Mr. Dillon or I interact have much scientific knowledge, be it the animal specialists, fertiliser specialists or any of the sector specialists. It comes back to what I said about getting it into a format a farmer can digest and use so they can take it at their own speed and break it down and then over time they can implement the actions that are included on it.

On the final question, we are going around the country doing more consultations on our CAP strategic plan proposal. Some of the divergence that has been mentioned between various parts of the country has come up in those consultations but young farmers in the eastern part of the country in particular have more of an understanding than those in other parts of the country such as the parts of the north west and parts of Cork that have a large number of trees planted that we need a more unified farming industry because, for example, dairy farmers cannot survive without beef farmers to rear their calves and they need tillage farmers to grow the grain that will feed their cows. The same goes for beef farmers and all farmers. All sectors need each other and there is more of an understanding there among young farmers on what could be considered the better land in the country that we cannot expect one area of the country to carry all of the weight when it comes to climate change.