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

I am pleased that we are having this discussion today because we can put some things on the record. Accusations have been made around the lack of priority for the sustainability story of Irish food production and that there is a sole focus on output, growth, expansion and so on. Those accusations do not recognise the extraordinary work that Ireland has undertaken in the past three or four years on the sustainability agenda, including auditing sustainability on farms, processing facilities and so on. The Origin Green programme is what makes the Irish food production system different from most of our competitors. By the end of next year we hope that all food and drink exported from Ireland will be from companies and farmers, who are responsible for the primary production of that food, that have signed up to the Origin Green programme - in other words, that have invited audits in respect of the sustainability of how they produce that food. That is the approach we are taking.

We are going to be setting up a dairy forum. Sustainability will be a big part of that discussion, as will the financial management of growth and the technology and innovation that can help us get better results in a more sustainable way than in the past.

Any old fool can reduce emissions by simply reducing production. There is no challenge in that. The challenge for the globe and for Ireland, in terms of giving leadership in this area, is finding a way to produce more food while reducing the overall emissions footprint of our production systems. It has to be all about the emissions intensity of a litre of milk or a kilo of beef. Ireland has to find ways of doing that and we are investing heavily in this area. This is why we have the new beef genomics scheme, for example. The idea is that we can breed better animals which grow faster and are slaughtered earlier. As a result, emissions during their lifetime are lower because they are killed at 20 or 22 months rather than 30 or 32 months. That is the approach that I have taken from a sustainability point of view. Essentially, An Taisce seems to be suggesting that the way in which agriculture must play its part in terms of the global climate change challenge is by simply reducing our herd size. That is not a sustainable approach towards a global problem.

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