Mr. James Healy:

We can only fit so much into a five minute statement but I have often said that Ireland has never had an industrial revolution and does not have heavy industry and while agriculture currently accounts for 33% of Ireland's carbon emissions, if we do not take any further steps to improve that position then it will become 40% or 50% as other sectors improve their situation.

We certainly do not want to get to a point where agriculture is sticking out like a sore thumb as not having taken any steps forward. It would be false to say however, that nothing is being done at the moment. By way of comparison with the national mitigation action plan, the carbon emissions from agriculture peaked in 1998 and have been decreasing since until quite recently. When the quota was removed in particular, it started to go in the other direction but that has coincided with a recognition that steps need to be taken to improve the situation. Many of the actions I have mentioned are being carried out by certain farmers and the IFA smart farming programme has shown that they can work but I accept that we need to do more of what we are doing already and it needs to be implemented more widely with all farmers.

The Food Wise 2025 targets are not necessarily related to how much we are producing, it is the value of that product and I do not see why the value of the product we are producing cannot increase and account for much of the work in meeting those targets. Over the last two years we saw that there were large increases in the value of Irish exports, particularly in 2017. I saw earlier in the week that the value of Irish exports fell back in 2018 but that was almost solely based on the fact the foreign exchange rates led to a fall in the value of the Irish product which reversed the trend in the value of Irish exports. Much of the work in hitting the Food Wise 2025 targets will come from adding value to the produce, whether that is dairy, beef or tillage, and making sure that we are selling to export markets that put a premium on Irish produce.