Mr. James Healy:

If we take lime as an example, it is a fertiliser that is relatively cheap but up until three years ago we were only spreading 10% of the lime that we were spreading in 1990. Lime is a fertiliser that allows for better utilisation of all the other fertilisers, minerals and elements that are in the soil. That trend has reversed through an intense focus on the scientific value and the soil value for spreading lime so that instead of 10%, we now have 30% of soils at the correct pH for grass growth. We will not be able to cover all of these abatement improvements at the same time but it is about picking the low hanging fruit and the ones that will get us the greatest improvement in the shortest amount of time and putting a similar focus on those as we have done with the spreading of lime over recent years. That is how we create that culture change among farmers which is needed to get them to avail of those scientific advances.

Incentives could be put in place to take advantage of some of those. We have made a proposal on sexed semen in our pre-budget submission. Sexed semen is more expensive than conventional semen but if the use of same were incentivised in agriculture, it would mean that fewer cattle would have to be bred for dairy farmers to produce the replacement heifers they would need for their dairy herds. They would have to breed fewer animals and the other animals could be bred as bulls for the beef industry. It would amount to more efficient use of the animals that are already there.

Given last year's drought, we have probably seen a slight tail-off in the increase in animal numbers. It is about incentivising and the BDGP mentioned by Deputy Deering is an excellent example of this. It is about improving the genetic merit of the animals in our herds. The improvements made through the scheme are being mirrored through the availability of information from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, which is leading the way in giving information to farmers that will allow them to make the right choices.