Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There is nothing like "just-in-time speaking". I am very proud to be able to make a short contribution on behalf of the Green Party. I will broaden the debate from the immediate outcome of the European Council meeting and provide a reflection from our experience during the election campaign. As a south County Dublin Deputy running a national party, it was a chance to review what is happening around the country in a way that one rarely gets to do. We ran candidates in all 40 constituencies and in a large number of them, agricultural policy was centre stage regarding what our party stood for.

It was a very energising experience. Far from the farming community and the green community being at odds, in meeting after meeting we found ourselves agreeing with the farmers and we found them coming to us afterwards and saying that, at last, they were meeting members of a party that understands something of what is happening. This happened because we have a broad, fundamental understanding of the powerlessness into which we have led the farming community under the structures we are applying in the Common Agricultural Policy and in the broad agricultural strategy we follow. The lack of direct contact between farmers and their consumers has led to a significant transfer of power to the processing and large retail sectors. I will cite some examples of people who are engaged in an alternative approach.

Our candidate in Clare, Fergal Smith, runs a community supported agriculture project and was meeting farmers who recognised that he was trying to break the lack of connection between consumer and farmer. He is trying to provide an alternative approach that may lead to a better and more secure price for the farmer, which is not reliant solely on international markets, with what happens in China or New Zealand undermining what one can do here. I recently heard the Minister say international markets may change and the factors regarding how one is paid vary, depending not only on the international bulk price for milk but quality and other factors. However, there is an underlying problem. In Tipperary, one of the finest areas for dairy farming, farmers told me they could not make it work at the current price. Farmers who have some of the best land in the country and the best dairy conditions on the planet told me it was not viable. They, too, recognised that what is happening is not working.

As a Deputy representing the great agriculture community of Dublin Bay South, I do not claim to be an expert. However, I am a business man, and there is a need for us to re-examine the agribusiness sector. Going green is not against technological improvement. At a recent National Ploughing Championships I spent the entire day asking questions of farmers as they passed by. I asked what were the main changes they had seen during the past ten years, what changes they expected in the next ten years and what advice they would have for the Green Party. I was amazed at how many said the biggest change they had seen was automation. They said the use of technology in farming had changed the nature of farming and how it worked. They anticipate it will continue in the future. There is a connection between going green and a future for farming. We also see the case for using new digital technologies that can measure water quality and analyse soil samples using new technology on one's phone. The use of this very highly advanced technology to give a real understanding of what is happening in land, to look after soil and manage the basic raw materials we have in farming is an area in which the business and farming communities have a common cause.

During the election campaign, every part of the country was suffering from flooding. Again, I am not an expert. I met a farmer in Donegal who had a simple sense that he could no longer use a field that had been flooded for sheep, given that the watery environment would cause the fluke to return. A fundamental shift in thinking happened this year in the nature of the storms and flooding. Farmers have started to realise that they are at the front line of the climate change challenge we face.

As we are increasingly realising, the response to this must involve managing our land from the mountaintop right down to the sea in a way that looks after the natural systems and ecosystems that are provided on our land. It is not just about agricultural output. There is a value in having uplands with forests or with certain other conditions. They should not be shorn. Flood prevention measures should be provided. Farmers and the farms we have need to play a part in flood prevention. We need to help farmers to deal with floods, so that they start to become part of the solution. As we manage our land in an integrated way, we must look after water quality, flooding and the farm outputs in a co-ordinated way.

We need a national spatial strategy to examine how we develop housing in this country and where economic development occurs. Such a strategy should include a land use strategy that integrates the entire ecosystem, looks after the areas of wilderness that we need to provide biological and ecological services and proposes changes in the way we do forestry. We need to do what we have to do to switch how certain areas of farmland are used. As a Teagasc climate advisor, Dr. Rogier Schulte, has said, if one can manage the land in a way that optimises the environment, one will optimise one's profit. Environmental thinking and good agricultural management go hand in hand. This must be done as part of a co-ordinated national plan that manages and protects against climate change risk.

These issues have arisen time and again over the last six months, for example as we have faced the flooding risk associated with climate change. We have met farmers and heard about the latest technologies, such as the use of automation, that allow the use of land to be optimised. We have looked at new business models that reduce our reliance on international markets and start to bring back a connection with the consumer here at home. This connects with our tourism industry, facilitates the provision of healthier food and leads to more secure incomes for farmers. Time and again, I have helped farmers to realise that what the Green Party has to say on farming makes sense. If we are going to be "origin green" and if we are genuine about our intention to sell this country in the expectation of getting a premium as a land that looks after its natural systems and provides healthy and safe food, we will have a better agricultural future.

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