Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Another storm is forecast for tomorrow. Storm Caroline is coming in, bringing winds of 110 mph from the north west. It is our latest forecast for bad weather and is unfortunate for everyone.

Ireland is one of only four countries in the EU where greenhouse gas emissions are still above 1990 levels. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has shown that agricultural emissions increased last year by 2.7%, following a 1.5% increase in 2015. In his speech on Monday at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's Food Wise conference in Dublin, our former Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, told Ireland to "wake up and wake up soon". Irish people are proud members of the European Union. Studies show that Irish people consistently poll as some of its biggest supporters. As Commissioner Hogan rightly points out, with that membership comes a responsibility to take on and embrace the EU’s role of being global leader on climate change. At the event in question he stated, "The day is gone when we can pay lip service to sustainability and climate action". This echoes the advice given by former Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon in 2015 to the effect that:

Ireland has also been a champion of efforts to conquer hunger. But today, one cannot be a leader on hunger without also being a leader on climate change. The rise in extreme weather associated with climate change could drastically reduce harvests and degrade arable land. I encourage Ireland to align its climate efforts with its admirable work against hunger.

Irish family farmers are the stewards of our countryside. It is often forgotten that the survival of the beautiful landscapes that give Ireland its Origin Green image is largely due to the positive attitudes of farming people down the years. Their care of our land for generations, often in the face of great poverty and stress, has secured the beautiful landscapes, fresh rivers and vibrant biodiversity that build the world around us, an integrated world without which we cannot survive. There is broad agreement among farmer and agrifood stakeholders that the current CAP greening system does not do what it says on the tin.

I want to quote the words of a local farmer, regarding an exchange with a Government official on rural payment schemes for ecosystem protection. He said, "I am not accepting those payments. I love the corncrake".He also stated, "Like, I mean, I didn’t want the money to protect the corncrake."

For too long a narrative has been allowed to grow that climate action will be disadvantageous to Irish farming and that it is climate action, rather than a broken, productivist CAP system, that is damaging our farming families. I do not buy into the idea that farmers and environmentalists are opposed. We have the potential to develop a better economy for farmers that would not benefit only the biggest and most productive farms. We can develop a low-carbon, grass-fed pastoral system that suits a minority of farmers, although this cannot be used as a reason to double output on the false premise that it is either environmentally sustainable or a secure long-term strategy. Large-scale, productivist Irish agriculture cannot continue to have an exemption from its responsibility to help lower our greenhouse gas emissions and protect sustainable farming on our island.

We should build on the success of agri-environmental schemes. These have been shown to serve both our environment and the farmers that engage with them - economically, environmentally and socially - and we should develop new ones which address climate concerns. Investing in such schemes will help to reduce our agricultural emissions. For example, farmers involved in the organic farming scheme do not use any synthetic fertilisers or chemicals on their lands. They focus on improving the health of the soil, water, plants and animals and they make responsible use of our natural resources. Lower stocking rates on organic farms will reduce agricultural emissions. Organic farms have been shown to have 50% more biodiversity when compared with non-organic farms. Despite this, the scheme has been closed to new entrants.

Ireland should be a leader in reducing food waste. Farmers have been encouraged by successive Governments to produce more and more food to feed a growing world population, yet data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations suggest that in the region of one third of all food produced is wasted. Irish data indicate that households throw away some 100 million tonnes of food each year. This disposable attitude to our food and poor food choices perpetuate the cycle of poor product prices for our farmers. This will only worsen with the cycles of flooding, drought and eco-system loss that climate change will bring.

Let us not allow the destruction of farmers' livelihoods or of our environment due to climate change. Our responsibility is to prepare and adapt to climate change as well as trying to avoid it happening in the first place. In each case Irish farmers, foresters and fishermen and women will be at the front line of what we need to do. They will be the heroes of our cause.

I wish to read into the record a quote from Edna O’Brien:

Later, as the day cools and they have gone in, the cry of the corncrake will carry across those same fields and over the lake to the blue-hazed mountain, such a lonely evening sound to it, like the lonely evening sound of the mothers, saying it is not our fault that we weep so, it is nature’s fault that makes us first full, then empty.

Since the 1970s, the corncrake population in Ireland has declined by 91%. There are fewer than 20 breeding pairs left. When I was a child growing up in Tramore, my father had a farm. The corncrake was the sound of the countryside. We are losing so much as a result of climate change and habitat loss. The farmers are losing so much. We have to take smart action and we have to take it now.