Dr. Barbara Doyle Prestwich:

To add to what Dr. McLoughlin has said, under the European Green Deal and the farm-to-fork strategy, to my mind, the biggest selling point is that, as a country, we have committed to certain climate targets. For farmers in Ireland, I honestly do not understand how we can efficiently and effectively reduce our pesticides by half by 2030, which is the commitment. We may well reduce our pesticides but the disease is still out there, so what do we do to treat the disease? Dr. McLoughlin referred to copper sulphate in the organic sector, which is banned in a conventional setting, but what do farmers conventionally use? What is available to them?

Again, coming back to communication, this is something we have suffered from within this industry for a very long time because other groups will get out ahead of the scientists and say certain things. Those are real concerns that we have to take on board as well but, sometimes, the truth gets lost in the story. A quick sound bite gets out there and it is run and all the rest, so the real science gets lost. We definitely have a battle in terms of the communication.

This could be one of our solutions, although I do not think any of us would say that this is the only way forward. As stated earlier, and we all alluded to it, what we are talking about is a toolkit. From that toolkit, there are certain things we can take, and this is just one of them. For example, we have the integrated pest management strategy. This does not take from maintaining good soil health, crop rotation or good agricultural practice, but what it does is give every farmer in the country the possibility to reduce their spraying regimes and, as a consequence, reduce emissions as they do not have to spray with fossil fuel-based chemicals. I see huge advantages with this technology. Communication is going to be our stumbling block but we can get it right.