Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the Chairman of the committee, Deputy Andrew Doyle, on the work he has done on this report and for leading the committee in producing yet another important report.

What we are examining here will have implications way into the future. It is interesting to note the figures. A total of 66% of land usage is for farming, 16% is wetlands, 10% is forestry, 1.6% is settlements and 5.4% is other lands. Farming, forestry and wetlands account for far more than 90%. That is extremely important. That land is available as a carbon sink and it has many other advantages.

It has become increasingly apparent that land is not just for farming. The singular use of land is no longer true. What do we do with land in general? We farm it to produce food. We also use land to sequestrate carbon, in other words as a carbon sink, because we use it for forestry and so forth. When we grow renewable energy crops carbon is absorbed. The third use of land is for views - just looking at it. That is very important. If one asks a county council planner or councillor about land they will speak about the areas of high visual amenity in every county. The farmer or landowner does not get paid for it, but it is an important use of land. We spend much time and effort trying to protect particularly important views and also the look of the countryside. The fourth use of land is recreational. That has become a larger issue. It is approximately ten years since we started to recognise that the use of land for recreation is very important.

We must accept that there are multifaceted and, at times, competing uses for land. Any single piece of land can be used for a number of different reasons. When considering land use, the environmental impact is becoming more important. The European Union has indicated that to comply with our environmental targets we will have to reduce the beef herd by 35% and the dairy herd by 5.5%. This would be an utter disaster. Our country suits animal production. The best, most efficient and most cost effective crop we grow is grass. It is very easy to grow grass in Ireland. It will grow on tarmacadam if one gives it half a chance. To say an economy that is grass based should cut back massively on its animal production is unreasonable.

However, there is no point in saying something is unreasonable when we must also acknowledge that Europe as an entity will have to comply with quite stringent climate change regulations. We will have to control climate change. That brings us to the far more complicated issue that will arise at European level, which is the need to determine those who should continue to produce and rear animals. I do not believe animal production will disappear and that we will all eat only carbohydrates and stop eating meat. The amount of meat we eat might not increase, but meat will be part of the human diet for the foreseeable future. Europe should look at the total resource in Europe and decide that the places where meat should be produced should be the places where it can be done most efficiently from an environmental point of view.

In setting down the environmental targets for agriculture, Europe should take into account the efficiency with which each region can produce animal, beef and dairy products. If that is done it will arrive at a very different sum from simply saying that those who have high animal production across Europe must cut it pro rata.

That would be a highly retrograde step.

As Deputy Doyle, the Chairman of the joint committee, pointed out, the second issue is whether we can produce more while reducing environmental damage. Can we produce more and at the same time generate smaller amounts of greenhouse gases? Carbon navigators and other technologies mean less fertiliser is required and farmers can farm in a much more targeted manner. Major changes have taken place in the past ten or 20 years and it is vital that we continue to develop technology to ensure we can do more while causing less damage.

I am beginning to take a strong interest in the issue of biogas. Germany has a significant biogas industry. If we were to convert all the slurry produced here to biogas, we could meet 10% of our national requirement for natural gas. This is a proven product, not an experimental technology, and can be used to run buses and trucks. For some reason, however, despite being a major producer of slurry, we do not do much with it. When I asked about nitrogen content I was informed that the production of biogas generates a pellet form of nitrogen which, when spread on the land, releases nitrogen in a much more satisfactory manner than occurs in the case of raw slurry. This is a win-win scenario in that the methane used as biogas replaces imported gas and it produces a much more controllable and usable form of nitrogen than is provided by raw slurry.

I listened to the Minister of State's comments on the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, and ecological focus areas. Deputies will agree that contradictions are the only certainty in this very interesting world. On the one hand, we are telling farmers on arable land not to plough up the last bit of it and instead create copses and ecological focus areas, while on the other hand, we are telling the farmer on the hill that if some of his land is not in good agricultural condition and is not being intensively grazed, it will be ineligible for farm grants. As such, we are paying one farmer to take the best land out of intensive production and penalising another farmer on marginal land on the basis that his land is not productive in a farming sense. We must take a much more holistic view to land use and accept that it is not only about producing animals. The issue is the totality of the uses we want to obtain from land.

The Minister of State listed a series of impressive actions under GLAS. I am beginning to wonder, however, how many bat and bird boxes or solitary bee actions the scheme will deliver. From what I hear, these options may be available but they will not be taken up given the payment offered to farmers. Based on an examination of the figures, I predict that it will be seriously undersubscribed. Having been open for eight weeks and with only four weeks to go before it closes, only 10,000 people have indicated they will participate in actions and only 17,000 people have registered on the system.

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