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

I have been absolutely accurate about what is happening. We have been working on this in real detail in the various committees of this House. We heard an impressive presentation from Macra na Feirme. The witnesses said we are on target to meet the plan for an 85% increase in exports, primarily in dairy and beef. Its presentation was very impressive. It is not all bad in Irish farming. There is a lot of good farming going on. What those young people said yesterday is true: the young farmers of the future will be green. They will be the young environmentalists of this country. However, we also know as a fact that despite all the good things such as the beef genomics programme and the various methods that are used, Teagasc and the Tánaiste's former Department, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, are projecting that we will increase our agricultural emissions. The Tánaiste cannot use the line that we are the most efficient and the best and sell hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fake baby milk powder to China and pretend that we are solving the global problems. If we are serious about the sustainable development goals and climate emissions, we will have to do more than we are currently doing.

Let us bring it back home: I accept we are a big food exporter but we are also a significant food importer. I would like to give Irish farming a chance and a fair deal so that we are not buying a kilo of carrots in the local supermarket for 49 cent, which is one of the things that needs to change to allow us to diversify. We could grow a range of different crops and start paying farmers properly. That could be one of the changes. We could also improve the health of the population and improve the country and its landscape and be part of the change. That is the type of change we need. On the one hand we cannot significantly increase our exports of dairy and beef and on the other do what the The Lancetand other scientists say we need to do. We need to change.

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