Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank everyone for their presentations. It has been really inspirational to listen to them, what they have done and the leadership they have shown within their own farming communities. In this debate, climate change and climate action and agriculture can sometimes seem insurmountable and that there is no solution that will not devastate our local and rural economies but the witnesses have shown that there is a way to do it. It is great that they can explain it to us and we can point to these as successful projects that hopefully will be rolled out.

Dr. Moran spoke of the cliff face he thinks we face. I agree but I think the cliff face is probably 2025-2026 when we do not meet the initial targets that are set under the current climate action plan, or its first phase. If the Government does not have a higher ambition for agriculture meeting emissions targets in that first phase, what will be the consequences?

Dr. Moran raised something I was going to raise but he pre-empted me, namely, labelling. When I listen to Mr. Sheehan or Mr. Traas speak about their farms, if there was produce in my local shop and I could see exactly what biodiversity or environmental benefit these local farmers were providing I know that I would pay a premium price for it. What steps would need to be taken in order to get such a labelling system rolled out? It would assist a lot of people and give them the information that they need to make the consumer choices that we would want them to make.

Mr. Traas's situation is one that illustrates how badly wrong we have got our agrisystem in Ireland that the majority of us will buy produce that has been packaged and flown in from, say, New Zealand or South Africa when we are perfectly capable of producing our own high-quality product in Ireland and should be doing so.

Why does Mr. Traas think that happened? There was obviously a decision or a trigger or something to discourage or disincentivise farmers such as Mr. Traas from getting into that area. How can that be reversed?