Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Tá cúpla ceist ansin. Ar dtús, on the fuel versus food issue, as the Deputy mentioned, we are a long way from the conflict in this area that pertains in other parts of the world, given that we have only 6,000 hectares of such crops planted. The evaluation is that we could plant up to 70,000 hectares before we would have to make the difficult choices being made in other parts of the world. Such production impacts mainly on water resources. In those countries the volume of water taken to grow fuel crops might otherwise be for human consumption.

There is no doubt that a market must be available for such crops. There also must be a willingness to produce them. Miscanthus is more popular than willow, even though there is good reason to plant willow. Marketing is also a factor. The trend can be detected from what is being done in the sector. For example, cereal farmers are more inclined to diversify into oil seed rape production, which necessitates the use of similar machinery and agronomy, of which the farmers have experience.

A number of factors come into play. It is too early to say whether the 10% target is realistic. The jury is still out on that. It will not be advantageous for us if the target set is complied with through imports of such crops simply for the sake of complying with a bureaucratic target. We must closely monitor the position to ensure we are not impacting on other marketable areas of food production for the sake of reaching a nominal percentage target set by the EU.

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