Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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150. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in view of an exclusive report in last week's Irish Farmers' Journal of a proposal in Europe to get rid of 33% of Ireland's beef herd and 5% of its dairy herd, and with proposals that Ireland will increase its dairy herd by approximately 50%, his views that our agri-sector must be left alone to help our country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12956/15]

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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Last week the Irish Farmers' Journal stated in an exclusive report, and the Irish Farmers' Journal claims to have seen the document, that it is proposed in Europe that 33% of Irish beef would have to go by the wayside, as well as 5% of our dairy sector, to comply with the 2020 targets.

I know the Minister has referred to the matter. The Minister is alleged to have said yesterday that we will be increasing our herd by 300,000 cattle. We welcome more exports and so on. However, if someone in Europe is doing this and if this is an exclusive report, we need to get it and sit down with people. Will the Minister make a statement on the matter?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased that we are having this discussion today because we can put some things on the record. Accusations have been made around the lack of priority for the sustainability story of Irish food production and that there is a sole focus on output, growth, expansion and so on. Those accusations do not recognise the extraordinary work that Ireland has undertaken in the past three or four years on the sustainability agenda, including auditing sustainability on farms, processing facilities and so on. The Origin Green programme is what makes the Irish food production system different from most of our competitors. By the end of next year we hope that all food and drink exported from Ireland will be from companies and farmers, who are responsible for the primary production of that food, that have signed up to the Origin Green programme - in other words, that have invited audits in respect of the sustainability of how they produce that food. That is the approach we are taking.

We are going to be setting up a dairy forum. Sustainability will be a big part of that discussion, as will the financial management of growth and the technology and innovation that can help us get better results in a more sustainable way than in the past.

Any old fool can reduce emissions by simply reducing production. There is no challenge in that. The challenge for the globe and for Ireland, in terms of giving leadership in this area, is finding a way to produce more food while reducing the overall emissions footprint of our production systems. It has to be all about the emissions intensity of a litre of milk or a kilo of beef. Ireland has to find ways of doing that and we are investing heavily in this area. This is why we have the new beef genomics scheme, for example. The idea is that we can breed better animals which grow faster and are slaughtered earlier. As a result, emissions during their lifetime are lower because they are killed at 20 or 22 months rather than 30 or 32 months. That is the approach that I have taken from a sustainability point of view. Essentially, An Taisce seems to be suggesting that the way in which agriculture must play its part in terms of the global climate change challenge is by simply reducing our herd size. That is not a sustainable approach towards a global problem.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you. I will come back to the Minister.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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Let us consider An Taisce and many of these bodies. Some people would rather see people sitting in their houses then actually out earning a living. We should know where we are coming from as a nation.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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They have a problem with the houses as well.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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The same An Taisce probably does not want us to have houses in rural Ireland either. Anyhow, I believe we need to focus on what we are good at as a nation, which is agriculture.

The Minister should check on the matter, but some of the larger countries in Europe have already put their hands up and said they will not achieve what they are supposed to achieve by 2020. If we are going to have that difficulty then let us be up front with it. Let us say it out. Let the different countries get together in Europe. There is no point in our trying to hide something. At the end of the day, we have come through a serious recession. We need people in jobs. If the dairy industry is going to produce what the Minister is saying, then it is great for jobs. It is going to help people in all parts of Ireland. I do not think anyone with a little common sense would try to prevent jobs by referring to these emissions.

Other countries have a good deal of industry, and this leaves the emissions from their agriculture sectors looking lower. We have a large agriculture sector. That is why our emissions look higher. Many mitigating factors are not taken into account in the agricultural sector, and this needs to be brought across. We need to go out to those in Europe and we need to go ahead and keep people in jobs regardless of what they say.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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First, we estimate that in the next five years there could be an extra 10,000 people employed in the dairy sector in Ireland. Between 3,000 and 4,000 extra people could be actually milking cows, but there will also be more employment in processing, transport and refrigeration, export and packaging, food science and nutrition and all the other things that the dairy industry is now about.

That is a hugely positive thing for rural Ireland. If anyone drives out of Cork city and through Mallow, they will see an €80 million investment by Dairygold. If they drive across to Mitchelstown, there is a €40 million investment there. If they drive to Charleville, there is another €50 million investment, this time by the Kerry Group. If they drive across to Moorepark in Fermoy, there is another investment of approximately €30 million for research facilities. This is what the dairy industry is doing for Ireland, and that is just in rural Cork, so that picture can be replicated in other counties as well.

I am certainly not going to allow a situation where, because of the setting of blunt targets for agriculture or for Ireland as a whole, we are going to reduce herd size and reduce output to meet targets when we are producing milk at the lowest emissions intensity on the planet. We are making, and we will make, that argument at a European level in terms of the setting of targets for 2030. However, that is not to say that Ireland does not need to do radical and dramatic things to meet our targets in terms of our responsibilities regarding climate change. We need to look at what we can do in other sectors. While the emissions from agriculture have come down considerably over the past ten years, there is a lot we can do in regard to energy and transport in particular, and we need to be very ambitious in those areas.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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I welcome the Minister's statement that he is not going to allow our dairy sector - I would have like him to have included our beef sector also-----

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I was just giving an example.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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If a sector is going well, we need to make sure there is a focus on jobs. Whatever Europe says, if we can show that we are doing something in the most efficient way in Europe, whoever has to take the hit in other parts of Europe or the world, they should take it, provided we are the ringleader in all of this. I believe we can produce milk and beef more efficiently than anywhere else.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree up to a point. However, that does not mean agriculture does not need to pull its weight. We need to get better, year on year, every year, in terms of the emissions intensity of our production systems. That is why we are measuring and auditing, and we will be widening those audits to include water, more efficient feeding systems, better grazing programmes, better breeding programmes and so on. The more sustainable we are generally in terms of the emissions intensity of our production systems, the more profitable we are too, and there is a direct correlation between efficiency and profitability on beef farms, dairy farms, poultry units, pig units, sheep farms and so on.

We are moving agriculture into a space that is prioritising sustainability. However, we cannot allow people to make the case that there is an easy answer to all of this, which is to simply reduce our herd size. The detrimental impact that would have on rural society is something I will not tolerate. Instead, we will solve this problem through innovation and through better ways of doing things, which is what I believe we have a responsibility to give leadership on.