Mr. James Healy:

The same targets are in place for every country and agriculture has to face the targets that are ahead of it.

We need to recognise that agriculture is sometimes unfairly tarnished in Ireland, relative to other European countries, and people do not understand the full story as to why in France or Germany, or elsewhere in mainland Europe, agriculture may only be 10% of the carbon emissions when it is 33% or 35% here. The targets are there, the percentage is the same and, because of the size of our industry, those targets are probably fair enough. We certainly need to get across the message that Ireland is not an agricultural carbon blackguard just because it is at 33%. We need to ensure that society at large understands the full context of the situation.

Deputy Eamon Ryan mentioned the point where anaerobic digesters have capacity far above and beyond what could possibly be used by the anaerobic digesters that are there and that is a situation we do not want. We do not want to have enough for 12 million people in an area with a population of 1.5 million or 2 million. That seems a step beyond what is required. Anaerobic digesters certainly have a role to play even in the positive impact they can have from an agricultural slurry point of view. They make the nitrogen in the effluent more usable and available for the soil afterwards. That is a positive I had not mentioned earlier. Irish farms do not have the scale to have an anaerobic digester on every farm but certainly, as we mentioned in our presentation, community based schemes and the set up of co-operatives within communities to allow them to share in the benefits of having an anaerobic digester in an area may help to overcome some of the planning objections and give the local community a sense of ownership of the project. Once there is a REFIT tariff that makes it economically viable for the farmer, it can be beneficial to all.

I agree with what was said about the issue of calendar farming. We had super weeks at the start of January but we could not spread slurry and maybe we need to change. There is a reason for calendar farming in that the scientific evidence shows that slurry does not need to be spread when the grass is not growing but, if the grass is growing at the end of December and the start of January, maybe we should be able to spread then. By the same token, if the scientific evidence shows that, if there is a cold spell at the beginning of March, as there was last year, then we can swap the three weeks of spreading in December and January because the grass was growing and agree not to spread in the three weeks of sub-zero temperatures in March. The scientific evidence is there to show that it will not be a positive for our water quality if we are spreading slurry at unsuitable times of the year but we can use that same scientific basis to have a bit of flexibility within the system to allow farmers spread more responsibly.

The farm retirement scheme worked for the number of years that it was in place. There was a considerable change in the average age of farmers and in the age of farmers who were actually farming the farm. A scheme that expected farmers to retire at the age of 55 was probably not going to work in the long term. From the point of view of Macra na Feirme, something that is coming out of our consultations on the next Common Agricultural Policy at the moment is a retirement scheme, not necessarily an early retirement scheme, but simply a retirement scheme that would provide some security for the older farmer once they have handed over the land and control of the farm to the younger farmer.

Certainly, that could be something positive to be included in the next Common Agricultural Policy.