Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would like to say how grateful I am to the people of Cork South-West and what an honour it is to represent them here. Brexit-related uncertainty might be at the front of our minds since the European Council meeting, but it is fair to say that a reduction in Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, payments has been on the cards since the European Commission put forward its original budget proposal in May 2018. At the very heart of the new arrangement discussed in February is the Irish protocol, which appears to guarantee unfettered trade on the island of Ireland, North-South and vice versa.Of course, the question is whether this measure will stay in place regardless of whatever future trade arrangements are agreed between the UK and the EU. From an agricultural perspective this means looking at issues that could disharmonise agri-trade arrangements on this island. The most obvious one that springs to mind is a distortion in support measures between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Given the dependence of Irish farm incomes on CAP payments, there is inevitably concern over what future negotiations could mean for CAP payments to Irish farmers and the possibility of any disparity or unfair advantage arising on the island.

We know that in recent weeks the Westminster Government has committed to maintaining farm funding at 2019 levels for the next five years. This of course includes Northern Ireland, where the new Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has already confirmed the farm support budget for 2020. In the South, within this largely unchanged total, the Commission proposed to shift spending priorities away from the two big-ticket items, namely, cohesion and agricultural spending, towards other priorities. With respect to the CAP, it proposed a reduction of 15% in constant 2018 prices. This was skewed in favour of a small 11% cut in Pillar 1 spending and a much larger cut of 27% in Pillar 2 spending. In real terms, average direct payments would fall by between 10% and 11%, with a greater cut of 25% in rural development spending. The cuts are less significant in nominal terms. Farmers would see an average 3% cut in the nominal amount of their direct payments, while nominal spending on rural development would be cut by 12%. There has never been any attempt or commitment to inflation-proof these payments. From this perspective, a cut of 3% or 4% to the nominal direct payment may sound small, but it will have a big impact on smaller family farmers already struggling to make ends meet.

Although this will not in itself be a decisive factor in the future of Irish farming, the climate and biodiversity crises will be. I am honoured to be the agriculture spokesperson for the Social Democrats. I was advised by family and friends not to touch this brief with a bargepole because it is seen as a lose-lose role. To date, all we have seen in the House is farmers pitted against environmentalists. The conclusion is that someone is always going to be offended. As a west Cork farmer, I believe changing the narrative is an important place to start. We have to be able to have a productive conversation, no matter how controversial or emotive the issue can be. It is fair to say that CAP, more specifically CAP reform, can be an emotive topic. There is a good reason for that. As payment systems go, CAP often raises more issues than it solves.

There are many of us in the farming community who do not believe it is fair that a small number of farms are able to take the lion's share of the payments when smaller family farmers throughout the country are at factory gates because they cannot get a fair price for their hard work. More farmers are left wondering why we are now being blamed for the climate change crisis because of practices we were actively encouraged and financially incentivised to engage in. The climate and biodiversity crises are real, but it is not outlandish to suggest that both of these things, ironically, have been funded by taxpayers through the CAP. This is not a personal failure of farmers but a systemic and policy failure. I will give an example. A few years ago a Department official came to my farm and docked me €800 from my area aid payment because I had bushes encroaching on fields. In other words, I was financially incentivised to damage the biodiversity of my own farm.

I am a farmer but I am also a scientist. It is time to change the way we talk about farming in this country. Instead of viewing farmers as the problem, we need to realise that they are the solution. I include farmers themselves in that, because we have to change. This is what succession planning looks like in 2020 and in the face of our climate and biodiversity crises. If we want the next generation to stay on the land, we have to give them a reason to stay. We have to allow them to make a reasonable and fair living for what we would all agree is extremely hard work.

What if we paid our farmers to take care of the landscapes on which the future of the industry depends instead of incentivising them to industrialise it? What if we paid and supported them in moving away from practices we now know are destructive and helped them open up the new opportunities that will come with the changes we need to make? I would rather see CAP reform that supported farmers and protected the sector in a sustainable way than a system that forces us into intensified production, depends on overconsumption to survive, and allows farmers to take the blame for the inevitable results we are now facing.

As smaller farmers have seen all too clearly over the past 12 months, they are likely to be swallowed up by that system, yet all we ever seem to hear from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is a defence of the sector's growth targets. Officials quote old data to tell us that we in Ireland do things with some kind of magic formula that means it is all right for us to release greenhouse gases, because if we do not, another country will. There is no sustainability in that. More recent data from the UN tells us that we release more carbon per euro's worth of food produced than any other European country. There is no sustainability in that. We say things like we need to feed the millions around the world, but we are already a net calorie importer. We decry the burning of the Amazon to clear land for cattle and then import feed grown on that cleared land for our own cattle. There is no sustainability in that. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the world depends on topsoil to grow 95% of its food, but that is rapidly disappearing under the strain of intensive production. If we continue to degrade our topsoil at the rate we are now, we could run out within 60 years. Imagine 60 harvests of food left. There is no sustainability in that.

Our sector is vulnerable. We all know about the small number of very wealthy businesses, but for the overwhelming majority of us, farming is not a lucrative business. However, it plays an extremely valuable role in our rural towns and communities, and CAP plays an extremely valuable role in sustaining those family farms and food producers. A representative from a farming organisation told me earlier this week that talk of sustainability in Irish farming was airy-fairy. I cannot agree. Sustainability means making sure there is something to farm tomorrow.

It means making sure our kids will also be able to earn a living on the land. It means producing an exceptional, high-quality product that people will pay for and value precisely because it is the product of a truly sustainable system. It is time to view CAP reform through this lens and support farmers through the changes we need to make.

See this speech in context