Mr. Donal Sheehan:

There is an SIS accreditation in Switzerland, which is where we got some of our inspiration, but it is not as detailed as the Farming for Nature programme. Members might be familiar with Jordans cereals in England. It has a certification system for its farmers who must work to a certain standard. When we talk about standards and what other European countries are doing, a major problem in recent years has been the greenwashing of our food industry. If we are going to develop any standard, it must be robust. We can no longer say a product is green or is this or that unless we are able to robustly stand over that. Consumers are too savvy now. They know what they are looking for and the younger generation in particular, who went through national school with seven green flags, are looking for recycling, water quality, biodiversity and so on. Whatever standard we come up with must be robust. We need to give consumers confidence what they are paying for and the reward that will go back to the farmer is exactly what it says on the tin.

On the point about farmers taking ownership, my own experience with farmers in the BRIDE project is they are driving on with these improvements. I was out with my own dairy discussion group, not with BRIDE, on a farm during the summer. The assessor who was out on that farm for the BRIDE project the previous summer said it was one of the worst he had been on, but when I went out, I could see massive improvements. There was no pesticide use and the farmer did not even realise how impeccable his farm was. There was no room for anything.

The hedges were a bit untidy, which is exactly what you want. The field margins had got a bit wider. He never made an issue of it. We were discussing breeding, milk production targets and so on. If it had been the year before, he would have apologised if he had a thistle or a bunch of nettles in the field, but it did not bother him at that point. It was very clear to me that he had got the message. When we were finishing up the farm walk, a buzzard flew overhead. I had not spotted it, but I normally would have. He spotted it and asked "Donal, is that buzzard?" It was a great signal to me that we were getting in touch with the farmers and getting them in touch with nature.

The app includes a full list of the species that can be found in the BRIDE project, including a visual picture and the sound they make. Part of the problem relates to the species that are gone and the species that are in trouble. The skylark was one of them. Only two farmers in the whole BRIDE project had these species, but they did not know that they had them. Again, I was on another farm walk and we saw a skylark when we were looking at the cows. I asked the farmer if he knew what that was and he said "No". I told him it was a skylark. We have a target payment for these species. If a farmer has any of the target species on his or her farm we give a target payment. Neither of the two farmers knew what they were. Part of the problem is that farmers are being blamed for losing biodiversity, but nobody told them about what biodiversity was, they were not told which species were in trouble, and they still do not know. We have 42 farmers, which is a very small proportion of what is out there. Some farmers are very tuned in with regard to the species that are there, but many are not. As well as scoring for quantity and quality of habitats, the app also shows the species to look out for so that farmers can become more in touch with nature on their own farms. The best part of it is that it will probably engage them. They will have this on their mobile phones and it will engage them every day so they know what exactly is on their farms. They will see the improvements that are being made.