Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Both the need for generational change and more land mobility are key challenges as part of the Food Harvest 2020 plan. This relates to improving productivity and getting younger farmers who are in many cases more dynamic, better educated, more ambitious and with a better understanding of the complex challenges surrounding food security, climate change, animal welfare and a series of other matters. If we are to plan for a growth period in agriculture, as we must, and if we want to be the leading country in terms of agricultural innovation, as we want to be, we need a new generation of farmer to be part of that story. We are doing much with the Common Agricultural Policy reform process and the use of taxation in budgets to try to achieve that generational change, which is clearly starting to happen anyway. There are now more young people in colleges than have ever been there before, with more university courses around agricultural science than we have seen before. The process is happening but we must encourage it.

I assure the Deputy that the taxation review, confirmed by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, is not an effort to save money. It is about redirecting and reshaping a package of taxation to ensure it can respond to modern problems.

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