Mr. Liam Hanrahan:

Mr. Keane and I have debated the Chair's question over and back during many a car journey. It is probably the biggest and hardest question to answer. We have a few solutions. As has been outlined in respect of long-term leasing, which is very beneficial, and trying to target it towards the younger farmer, one of the solutions we came up with recently at our agricultural affairs committee is the development of a succession plan that will benefit both the farmer exiting farming and the young farmer coming in. We put forward a proposal that the exiting farmer would be rewarded financially somehow for leasing the farm to a farmer under the age of 35. In exchange, the farmer under the age of 35 would then have to implement a suite of environmental measures to allow us to get on the right pathway to hitting our environmental targets. The committee is well aware of what those targets are. They include grassland management, soil fertility, high genetic merit cows, and better management of slurry and manures, all of which add up very significantly. For example, having cows that have a €100 economic breeding index, EBI, versus cows that have a €200 EBI means a 10% difference in a farmer's carbon footprint.

It is more likely a young farmer would adopt these measures but if-----