Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No, we are not.

Ramping up production of dairy and beef and arguing at EU level for the right to continue to do so, as the Minister did last week, is incredibly shortsighted and will drive us into further costs, environmentally and financially. One of the key actions we must take is to turn away from beef and dairy towards more sustainable agriculture, and changing our diet is a key part of it. We should eat far less red meat and dairy, and it must be among our Government health promotion initiatives. The UK's Chatham House has pointed out that, despite their vast contribution to climate change, beef and dairy production attract very little policy attention. We must change this. One can make a compelling case that without dietary change at a global level, the 2° Celsius global warming goal is pretty much off the table. As a means of converting calories into food, red meat production is staggeringly inefficient. Recent research has found that producing one calorie of beef requires 160 times more land and produces 11 to 48 times more greenhouse gases than producing food such as potatoes or rice.

One of the most significant changes we could make to effect climate mitigation would be to eat less meat. It would also do our cancer rates no end of good and, probably, contribute to the rising battle against obesity. The Minister should persuade the Government of the benefits of this as well as pursue serious changes in the structure of agriculture. However, the Minister is doing the opposite. Justin Kilcullen of Trócaire has rightly said the policies the Minister is pursuing regarding beef and dairy production have nothing to contribute to world food security. If anything, they will achieve the opposite in the long run. They are inefficient.

The Minister is fond saying we are the most sustainable, and he piped up with it a minute ago. It is arguable. I would not say we are the most sustainable. While we are not the least sustainable, but the fact that we are not the worst of a bad lot is not something we should crow about. Not only are Irish beef and dairy farming unsustainable for the environment, they are economically unviable. The Irish beef sector survives only thanks to generous EU subsidies. Without EU subsidies, averaging approximately €400 per hectare, many Irish beef farms could not survive. As we fail to reach our emissions target, thanks to Government policies such as Harvest 2020, we will be hit by massive fines of up to approximately €500 million per year. These fines will land on the shoulders of the Irish taxpayer, making cattle farming even less sustainable, never mind the cost of climate change and the impact it will have. Dr. Stephen Flood of NUI Maynooth has estimated losses of up to €2 billion per year linked to agriculture and climate change costs. It is huge.

We must step back from how we have done things, relentlessly driving beef and dairy farming forward. There must be a shift in policy, such as switching cattle farms to alternative land uses such as bioenergy crops or forestry, which could ultimately lead to a more secure and balanced income outcome for farmers. A shift to forestry would, ironically, help with the flood situation which has become a permanent feature. If we do not do it, there will be a catastrophic outcome for all Irish citizens, including Irish farmers. We cannot focus only on short-term income.

Large vested interests stand in the way of any such change and they must be tackled. Glanbia, which in 2014 routed its €40 million profits through a brass plate company with no employees in Luxembourg to cut its tax bill to only 0.5%, is happy to lump Ireland with these costs. However, the Minister should not be happy regarding the welfare of the nation including farmers.

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