Dáil debates

Thursday, 24 November 2022

3:50 pm

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

He will show great restraint.

For good reason, we have set ourselves transformative targets. We aim to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and we hope to have 18% of our land in forestry by the same time. We are seriously struggling to develop policy tools to deliver on these targets, though. I commend the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, on achieving a much higher planting premium, but we are 75% off target. We are not using timber in buildings.

The Scots use three times as much timber in buildings than we do. As a sector, we do not have the integrated approach to either land use or forestry that we need. We must think seriously about how we are going to approach this. We thought forestry and land use were emitting 4.8 million tonnes of emissions and that was going to go up to 7 million tonnes by the end of the decade. That has been radically re-estimated to 6.8 million tonnes now, rising to 11 million tonnes by the end of the decade. We are heading away from the hoped for carbon neutrality from land use. That is leaving aside agriculture altogether. Even if we deliver the 8,000 ha of planting, its impact will be just 2 million tonnes by 2050 and the imbalance in our land use will not be corrected. We must seriously examine how we can reward farmers for the carbon farming that is inherent in the two big challenges we have, one of which is to deliver forestry at probably more than double the target contained in the Minister of State's strategy. We must also consider how we will succeed in restoring the peatlands, which are in grassland, and being used in such a way that they are accounting for 10 million tonnes of emissions. If we take the 10 million tonnes of emissions that are coming from 400,000 ha and we value them at €100 a tonne, that equates to €2,500 per hectare per year on those lands. That is theoretically what is at stake. No agricultural activity is yielding anything on that scale in terms of the potential rewards from carbon farming.

I accept there are all sorts of uncertainty. It was quite depressing to hear Teagasc say to our committee recently that it could not pin down whether we would save 1 tonne or 10 tonnes per hectare. We are still far away from having metrics that could have genuine carbon farming that would give farmers a good prospect of being able to do something differently in line with the big transformative goals we have set ourselves and be well rewarded for it. We must get our act together. We are waiting for the perfect research before we come up with some policy tools that farmers will see as attractive to make the sort of change that is required. I can understand the suspicion of farmers regarding these issues because they have not had a great experience with many of the initiatives. Going into biomass was not a success. The difficulty with forestry is that when the land must be locked up for a long period, its value immediately falls. We must think more creatively about how we devise a model where carbon farming is genuinely rewarded. Agriculture is in a unique position. It is responsible for one third of our emissions, but it is unique in that between agriculture and land use we have the capacity not just to stop the rate at which climate is deteriorating but to reduce and sequester carbon. This is something that is not available in any other sector. The best that they can do is slow down the pace of deterioration in climate, whereas agriculture and land use have the possibility to improve the situation. We are not creating the policy framework where there is such a level of potential reward that people could see a bright future for their farm or district in this transformed environment.

I recently read an article by an academic from Galway whose name I cannot remember, which pointed out the value of the sequestration of carbon on a hectare of forestry is €25,000 and the avoided methane by not stocking it was worth another €17,000. That is just in carbon terms, not to mention the income that could be derived from the use of the timber in various ways. There is not the urgency in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to address the situation in the new context we face. The Department's food strategy delivered and was successful, but its forestry strategy has completely failed, notwithstanding the great efforts the Minister of State is making to turn that around. The Department does have serious questions to answer. I know that people will be critical, but we must partner with farmers on a different conversation.

I am very taken with the concept of the circular economy, which is the idea that we can still deliver high standards and quality of life but take the environmental damage out of it. The conversation we must have with the agriculture and land use sector is how we create this new vision that we want to achieve in a way that they come with us. Too much of the conversation with agriculture and about forestry and land use is about pointing the finger at people for failure rather than saying that this is a genuine opportunity to transform rural prosperity and to build strong vibrant rural communities on the practices and infrastructures of the future instead of pretending that we can hang on to all the ways of the past. That is the vision I would like painted for rural communities. It is possible to do that. I genuinely believe that the sort of changes we need are potentially available, as well as the rewards, because the cost of doing these sorts of things in other sectors will be astronomical in terms of the commitment to net zero. Agriculture, which has this great competitive advantage in this particular arena, should focus on how it grabs that opportunity for itself.

I think I am taking extra time. I have probably said enough. I genuinely believe that we must change the conversation about the future of rural Ireland. Broadband will change it, as will the circular economy. A well-thought out strategy for carbon farming as well as food production can genuinely offer a much brighter future than many think possible. That is the conversation that we need to lead.

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