Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I also welcome the opportunity to discuss the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. I commend the Minister on his comprehensive report on same. We all understand the job at hand. The elephant in the room when it comes to agriculture, which is often conveniently ignored by commentators, is the fact that we never had an industrial revolution in this country and, therefore, agriculture is very prominent in our economy.

The outputs from agriculture are always going to be the biggest but I do not think that gets proper coverage. We are compared with other countries that have massive outputs from industry, transport and energy production and people are given the impression that Irish cows are world polluters. That is something that must be addressed. We had much talk this week about the correct and proper use of language. The image of Ireland that is portrayed and the language that is used is important.

This is not a bad news story. There are targets which need to be met and I would differ with the Minister on how we will achieve those targets. The Minister hosted a fantastic event on Monday and the FoodWise 2025 document contains brilliant targets which are very achievable. Indeed, they must be achieved for the future of the sector. If we are going to increase our output by up to 85%, it stands to reason that our emissions, if not handled extremely well, are also going to increase. That is evident in the 2.7% increase in greenhouse gas output in the agriculture sector in the last year. However, that 2.7% increase went hand in hand with a 22% increase in cow numbers and 27% increase in milk production. We are one of the most carbon efficient producers of dairy products. If the knee jerk reaction of some and their narrow-minded attitudes to solving or attempting to solve this problem were to be heeded, we would be pushing that food production to other areas of the world that are far less carbon efficient. That might solve our problem and bring our figures closer to the targets but this is a global issue. It is not a question of one country ticking its box. This is a global issue and needs to be viewed as such.

In terms of sequestration, I welcome that land use changes and forestry are now included in the 2030 framework. Sequestration can remove up to 26.8 million tonnes or 27 million tonnes of CO². The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine produced a report recently on the future of the tillage sector. With that in mind, all sectors need to be involved and there must be joined-up thinking both within the Department and across Departments. The Minister alluded to that on Monday in his closing remarks at the FoodWise 2025 event. Agriculture reduced its output by 3.5% from 1990 to 2016, which goes unmentioned. At the same time, transport outputs increased by 139% and energy by 116%. If we tick all the boxes and achieve our targets within agriculture but the same is not happening in the other carbon emitting sectors, it will not have the desired effect in terms of influencing climate change. All Department need to come on board in this.

To refer back to tillage. We have farmers who are leaving that sector at the moment. Tillage would not be a major carbon emitter. In fact, it would have plenty of sequestration opportunities to offer if we were to look at the diversification of products and the production of biomass crops. If farmers were able to make a living from tillage they would not be considering giving it up and moving into dairy, which the figures show produces more carbon emissions. In terms of the overall sector, therefore, we need more joined-up thinking. We are way off our reduction targets at the moment. We are supposed to achieve a 20% reduction by 2020 but it looks like we will come in somewhere between 6% and 11%. At the same time, there are farmers walking away from tillage which is one area that would actually help to improve those figures. They have no choice if they are to make a living from agriculture but to consider moving into the dairy sector.Incentives in areas such as tillage could help to improve those figures into the future and at the same time help us to achieve our targets of increased food production by 50% by 2050. The requirement to reduce our carbon emissions and at the same time increase food production on a worldwide basis by 50% by 2050 is daunting, but knee-jerk reactions will not serve us well. The cull of 50,000 cows in the Netherlands as a means of achieving targets was a knee-jerk reaction. We are seeking to increase our livestock while in the Netherlands they are culling them. I acknowledge that production in the Netherlands is not nearly as carbon efficient as it is here, but to hear about such high levels of culling is frightening. The objective of Foodwise 2025 is to increase production here by 85%. As worldwide food production must also be increased by 50%, it is catch-22 situation.

Some of the schemes introduced have helped to reduce emissions. The Minister mentioned that there are 25,000 farmers in the genomics scheme and that GLAS has 50,000 members. I believe GLAS needs to be reviewed in the context of what more can be achieved from it. We face major fines if we do not meet our targets. Depending on to whom one speaks, the amount of that fine increases astronomically. It would be far more beneficial to incentivise or subsidise schemes to assist in achieving our targets rather than spend that money on payment of a fine. This would be money well spent. The Minister needs to give consideration to this proposal.

As I said earlier, this issue needs to be addressed cross-departmentally. We are speaking specifically about the agriculture sector today but one sector alone will not solve the problem. We need joined up thinking on this issue. If the agriculture sector becomes carbon neutral but carbon in the transport sector continues to increase by up to 140%, it does not make sense.