Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Harkin will also take a minute or two. I will take four or five minutes.

The Minister said earlier that we have the capacity to feed a population of 40 million based on sustainable food production but is our production sustainable? I do not believe he has outlined that it is sustainable. There are considerable differences about whether that is the case. The crux of it is, who do we believe? Reading the annual sectoral mitigation statement on agriculture would not leave one any the wiser. It starts by outlining of plans from the climate action plan, which seem to be ambitious, but they are not referenced anywhere else in the plan so we do not know whether they are realistic, on the way to being achieved or totally unrealistic. It states that emissions from the sector in 2030 are to be between 17.5 MT and 19 MT of CO2 equivalent by achieving between 16.5 MT and 18.5 MT of CO2 equivalent cumulative abatement over the period 2021 to 2030. That sounds great. It seeks to achieve a 26.8 MT of CO2 abatement through the land-use change and forestry, LUCF, actions and sets a target for the level of energy to be supplied by indigenous biomethane injection in 2030. The fact that the plans are not mentioned again tells its own tale. The most telling line in the document is that 40% of the overall budget of the new CAP at EU level will contribute to environmental or climate action. Unfortunately, that is the level of our aspirations and how we will achieve them.

We do not have a voluntary scheme for farmers. That is possibly the only sector where voluntary schemes are set to reduce carbon emissions. It is clear that we do not have buy-in to the voluntary schemes across agriculture and, therefore, we should now make it compulsory to participate in environmental practices. Hopefully, the EU will go down that road because I do not believe we will do so. It will have to be made compulsory to qualify for new payments from the EU because that is the only way we will get buy-in.

All the talk today is about the EU policy of farm to fork and what that will achieve for reduction of emissions. How will that policy benefit the Irish type of production? Much is made in this House of our production methods and how they are grass-based and environmentally friendly, yet all the discussion is about how bad Brazilian beef is for the environment, which I have no doubt is the case.

It seems there is not much recognition of the environmentally sustainable production of Irish agriculture from the so-called markets or from the beef factories, which seem to only be interested in price and in reducing the price paid to farmers.

It is interesting that our own organic farming scheme, over which the Department has control, has been held back and that grant aid has been held back from farmers. This scheme could help to grow our number of organic farmers and to reduce our dependency. Any future EU scheme should ensure that a farmer who wishes to go into organic production will be assisted. Badly managed funding calls should not give farmers false hope either. Who will qualify and why should be clearly laid out. Unfortunately, organic farmers are looked upon by the Department and the farming organisations as an awkward rump that must be dealt with.

Today I again heard the Minister talk about how methane is different. It is different, in that it is far more damaging to the atmosphere. It may be short-lived, but the impact it has over that short period is very significant. The Minister does not do anything for our farmers by continuing to wrongly state that methane does not have an impact. As long as we try to say that farming will not have an impact on the climate and delay recognising that farming, like all activities, impacts on the environment, farming and farmers will lose. The only people will gain are the beef barons who own the slaughterhouses in the State.

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