Ms Orla McManus:

I thank the Chair and the committee on behalf of CMP Co-operative Society Limited and the wider edible horticultural sector for the invitation to speak.

I am CEO of CMP, which represents mushroom producer members. Currently, horticultural peat is a key input material for our industry, as the committee knows. I am joined by Mr. Mel O’Rourke, specialist adviser to CMP, who was interim CEO before my appointment. On behalf of the edible horticultural sector, I express our gratitude to the committee members for having us here today to discuss peat in Ireland and for giving us the opportunity to discuss the substantial risk to the edible horticulture sector due to restrictions on horticultural peat harvesting.

As an industry, we need peat as a raw material. At present, Irish peat is not compliant. Ireland is a global leader in mushroom production and we wish to be compliant in all areas. However, the legislation needs to be changed to allow this to happen. Further investment in the Irish mushroom industry will not and cannot take place if locally harvested peat is no longer available in the short to medium term. This is not in keeping with Ireland’s Food Vision 2030 or Ireland’s view of food security. We believe the power to change legislation and to regulate lies here, and that is all we need to secure the future of edible horticulture in Ireland.

Our industry represents total production of mushrooms of 68,000 tonnes per annum, on 2021 figures, a retail value of €160 million per annum and an export market of 85%, or 56,000 tonnes, of Irish mushrooms to the UK market. As a result of the High Court ruling in 2019, harvesting of horticultural peat now requires a complex licensing and planning regime versus the single-stage systems in competitor EU states. This has caused horticultural peat harvesting to stop and Irish peat supplies are now all but exhausted. Despite significant research into alternatives, there are no current commercially available and environmentally sustainable alternatives that can replace horticultural peat immediately, in either quality or quantity. This has left us with only one short-term solution, which is to import peat. This bears additional costs that are passed on to growers and then to consumers, adding to the food inflation that the public are experiencing, as well as making growers less viable in a sector where input costs are already through the roof. This can cause a reduction in demand for mushrooms as part of the consumer’s basket of food staples.

We would highlight that the Irish mushroom industry requires an insignificant amount of peat, from an area of less than 15 ha per annum, for us to maintain Irish mushroom production at the current level, a level that brings in €160 million per annum at retail value. Irish peat has unique properties that are crucial to the Irish mushroom success story, so while the volume we require as an industry is low, Irish peat has characteristics, in regard to its water holding capability and biologically, that form one of the foundation stones of the Irish industry. This has been crucial to our success.

The mushroom sector uses a fraction of the total of harvested peat in Ireland. Using 2019 numbers, the mushroom industry represented only 0.5% of all peat extracted on the island. We ask that legislation allows for the industry to become compliant in the sustainable extraction of the 15 hectares required per annum to service our industry as we make the transition to peat-free. CMP, as a producer organisation fully supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, is innovating in the space of a full peat replacement. We have invested millions from industry and we have a lot of support from the Department to develop a sustainable alternative. We are engaging experts in the industry and synergising the expertise of growers, scientists, composters and other stakeholders to develop a sustainable and environmentally acceptable replacement for peat, alongside reducing waste in our industry and mitigating and adapting to the climate change challenge.

In the medium term, that is, the next three to five years, we anticipate reducing the volume of peat required in the mushroom industry by 50% to produce CMP member mushrooms. This will be achieved with a sustainable peat-free alternative, which is still going through research and development. However, this is heavily reliant on investment and Government support. In the first three years of getting our mushrooms from peat-free alternatives, it will cost some €19 million and we have already communicated that to the Department. We aim to have a full peat replacement by 2030 for all CMP member producers, again, heavily dependent on Government support and industry investment.

In line with the working group report on the use of peat moss in the horticultural industry and the KPMG report, CMP is calling on the Government, as an absolute priority, to develop viable mechanisms to sustainably use domestic peat supplies in the short term. There is a real prospect of terminal decline in Irish mushroom production due to current Government policy, which is increasing the cost base further and means we cannot compete against other countries, with Poland a real threat at present.

The crisis in the horticultural peat sector has impacts on our environment, as Mr. Neenan said. These ships bringing in peat need to travel 3,000 km and there are also lorries at the other end to deliver that product. The emissions generated from domestically harvesting peat are 0.15% of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions so there is no argument in that regard. On employment, the horticultural industry employs over 17,000 people in Ireland and 3,500 in the mushroom industry alone. These jobs are increasingly at risk and job losses, particularly in rural areas, will significantly affect the livelihoods of those working in the sector. As mentioned, there is already a decline in the number of growers and production units, and the threat of rising input costs due to imported peat and possible peat alternatives threatens to put growers out of business, especially those in rural areas. With regard to the economy, the horticulture industry has a farm gate value of €469 million on 2020 figures, with €124 million of this being the farm gate value of mushrooms alone, and with an export value of €160 million in 2021. The increasing costs and uncertainty of supply will have devastating consequences, with businesses being forced to close in Ireland.

CMP was represented by Mel O’Rourke, an industry expert, on the working group on the use of peat moss in the horticultural industry. The working group comprised representatives from the relevant Government Departments, State bodies, environmental NGOs and the horticultural sector. It made several recommendations, as follows: horticultural peat should be phased out by 2030, after a transition period; legislation should be passed to remove the dual consent licensing system; and a single consent system should be introduced, as is the case in other European countries. Despite its expert status, the working group’s recommendations have been ignored, as Mr. Neenan said. Despite promises of reform from the Government, not a single operator has managed to get either planning permission or a licence since 2019. It is clear that the recommendations in the working group report and the KPMG report have been ignored.

In January 2022, the three Departments with responsibility for the area, the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Environment, Climate and Communications, and Housing, Local Government and Heritage, published a working paper outlining a series of actions to be taken, including a review of the current stocks of peat available, publication of advice on peat extraction for sub-30 ha bogs, and continued research into alternative growing media. All of these actions have failed to be delivered, leaving the industry without any Government guidance. We have called for the three Departments to create a comprehensive, short-to-medium term strategy for the transition away from horticultural peat, with practical solutions that support the sector and financial supports as we transition to peat-free.

We recommend the following immediate action to support the mushroom and edible horticulture industry. We recommend that a legislative framework be put in place to bring certainty for the provision of local peat to sustain production of edible horticulture. To avoid an imminent crisis in the mushroom and field horticulture sectors, this needs to be achieved as a matter of urgency. As Mr. Neenan said, we ask the Government to consider the following measures: treating sub-30 ha peatland as individual bogs, not aggregating them; and where an already existing bog production site exceeds 30 ha, a sub-30 ha area could be permitted for harvesting horticultural peat, provided the remainder of the area is appropriately isolated and set aside for restoration. There will be no need for opening any new bogs from the areas described as there are sufficient areas available to supply the Irish horticultural sector as a whole.

This solution would require just 1,500 ha of bog, less than 0.1% of Irish peatlands. As said before, the mushroom industry needs only 15 ha of the 1,500 ha. The long-term result would be no large-scale horticultural peat harvesting in Ireland.

I thank the members for listening to me. On behalf of CMP members, I thank the Chair and members for their invitation to me to appear before them. The crisis in the sector has not gone away. Without urgent action, our industry, the Irish mushroom industry, for which we, as global leaders, have so many reasons to be proud, will suffer and diminish.

Our producer organisation, supported by the Department, wants its members to be the most sustainable mushroom producers in Europe. We are confident we will move away from peat by the end of our new operating programme, which is by 2030; however, we need the legislative framework to allow the harvesting of Irish peat to eliminate the short- and medium-term risks as we make the transition.