Mr. Fintan Kelly:

I will make a general statement to welcome Senator Dooley's comments. These issues are obviously complex. The way we stay at agriculture, farmers often interpret as meaning that we are targeting farmers. When we speak of issues we have with agriculture intensification, we are not necessarily saying that the farmers are to blame. This is a much broader societal issue. This is the failure of generations of national and EU policy, market forces and society's attitudes towards farming, which have driven a cheap food model. In many ways farmers, along with the environment, are the biggest victims of the systems we have created. From the Environmental Pillar's perspective we feel that farmers are the solution, and this land use issue is at the forefront of this. It is not going to be simple or easy. In many ways, a lot of our most threatened species and habitats are dependant on farmers. They are dependant on high nature value farming. On the other side many farmers in these regions have come to be dependant on public supports like agri-environmental schemes and environmental supports. This is where we are. It is not all negative. We can come out the other end. We can protect family farms in these marginal areas and can continue to preserve values like the cultural, landscape and biodiversity benefits these farmers and communities deliver to society. It is quite a contentious issue, but also a positive issue. We have to get through this. We cannot weather the storm of climate change and biodiversity loss by ignoring it any longer. We have to work together and talk to one another to find a way and build a better future.