Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I also extend my warmest congratulations to Deputy Bacik on her election. What a wonderful addition to the Dáil she will be.

Irish agriculture must change. The change required to put it on course is transformational and the 2020s must be the decade that starts that substantial directional change. The last major food systems shift was in the post-war decades. The misnamed green revolution, fuelled by fossil fuels, led us along the path of abundance and growth, but at an enormous cost to our environment. The next major food systems shift is now and it must be one during which the environment stops paying a heavy price.

Agricultural policy, like food production, must be rooted in the soil. I have visited many farmers over the course of the past year or so. Some see the value in the soil and farm it to protect its biology and function. Others see it merely as a medium to feed in order to grow a crop. Soil is more than just a growing medium. It is something living and breathing. It can store carbon and it hosts a quarter of our biodiversity, or it should do if it is treated right. We have, sadly, become addicted to feeding our soil with artificial fertilisers. Those fertilisers are finite if they are mined or produced with fossil fuels. If we are to fix things, we must do more than just cut back. We must wean ourselves off these synthetic inputs and embrace the new agricultural revolution that is now upon us. We in Ireland have a choice. We can either lead and capitalise economically and environmentally on that leadership or we can sit and wait, pay huge fines and spend the next decade catching up, licking our wounds and regretting that we did not act sooner because that is what will happen.

Our farming system is hooked on synthetic nitrogen and it is time we started the detox. This will open the door to a whole new world of sustainable farming practices which we, as policymakers, must nurture and support, and legislate for if needs be. I am not talking about everyone going organic. While I believe organic farming is a vital component in our fight against climate change and for biodiversity, that is not what I am talking about now. I am talking about the mainstream, the farmers our citizens will almost wholly rely on to meet our climate and biodiversity targets. Luckily for us, the vast majority of those farmers are already extensive. They do not place an undue burden on their lands or on our shared environment. However, those who do that will have to change and play a significant role in shaping our future.

We are all in this together and no one is entitled to a free pass. It is time to design and deliver for a future that in which our land is released from the tyrannic grip of fossil fuels and finite minerals, where our food systems truly work in harmony with nature and we mimic ecology in everything we do. The time has come for us to build a truly sustainable food system, one which is diverse and has plants and animals working together to sustain life. Irish agriculture needs systemic change to set it on a secure path to resilience and as we seek to get farming back working with nature, we all need to remember that ecology does not do fossil fuels.