Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will follow on from much of Senator Kyne's contribution. Seven months ago, a headline in the Irish Farmers' Journalcarried some bad news. It read, "Fertiliser prices jump on the back of tight supplies". This week, Bloomberg claimed things were getting even worse and that Europe has a fertiliser crisis and prices are spiking. There are some tough times ahead for many of our farmers.Goods based on fossil fuels have shaped our society and fertiliser is one of them.

In the same way we cannot live without plastics, much of the grass that farmers grow cannot live without chemical fertiliser. We are all hooked. As the price of fossil fuels continues to rise, might this be time to ask does it have to be this way and can we do things differently? This programme for Government commits us to delivering an ambitious reduction in the use of inorganic nitrogen fertiliser through to 2030. It does not say by how much but it does say we must do it without undermining family opportunity.

Last week, I visited a dairy farmer on the Cork-Waterford border and I want to tell his story to the House. This farmer is no green romantic and is not an organic producer. He is an intensive farmer who milks 200 cows on 265 acres, along with his father’s 60-acre farm to carry his replacement heifers and to grow some forage crops. He is a tough businessman with an enterprise that needs to deliver for him and his young family but he believes that in the long term, his farm also needs to deliver for his soil. In 2018, recognising that his standard perennial ryegrass production system required a great amount of fertiliser and a stable climate, he decided to change tack. He started introducing multispecies swards as part of his re-seeding programme, planting multiple varieties of grasses, clovers and herbs. He also started decreasing his use of chemical nitrogen. As he decreased his chemical use, he waited to see if the grass would stop growing. It did not. He waited to see if milk yields would drop. They did not. This year, he applied no chemical nitrogen to the grazing ground at all, yet continues to see yields maintained and improved profitability.

I know that one swallow does not make a summer and that this farmer’s results do not constitute a scientific study but this farm is producing approximately 8,000 l of milk per cow per annum, which is well above the national average and has saved close on €40,000 this year alone on fertiliser and application costs. Chemical fertilisers can do a great job of feeding a certain type of grass but it is not necessary on multispecies swards, which draw on nature’s nutrients for growth. This is regenerative agriculture with healthy soil and healthy cattle thriving on a tasty and nutritious mixture of crops, however wild and uneven they might look to the casual observer. What this farmer is doing may not work for every farmer but every farmer should at least think about what is happening on that farm. I know what I saw, which was a strong family-run dairy business based on healthy soil and a farm bursting with biodiversity. I would really like to believe too that I saw the future.