Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. Like Senator Kyne, I compliment him on the work he has done since taking up his brief. In particular, I compliment him on listening to the voices of the farming community and visiting the marts around the country. The latter was a useful exercise.

Farmers are front-line workers in the battle against climate change. What farmers are looking for is sustainability. They want to ensure that farm families can be sustained from a financial point of view but they are also committed to addressing the climate and biodiversity challenges. As other contributors noted, farmers know and can see the impact of climate change on the ground and in the context of what happens in their communities.

It is important that the Minister should start to roll out some of the incentives for farms to move in a green direction. I am thinking especially of solar panels and renewable energy on farms. We have got to give the incentives and clarity to farmers to be able to make greater use of those panels. I have spoken before about anaerobic digestion, AD. I am concerned that we have not been ambitious enough in some of our targets. I was very struck reading Darragh McCullagh in the Irish Independent where he points out that there are only ten AD plants in the State compared with almost 50 in the North. Compared with the approach in other countries, we are not being ambitious. If we want to look at slashing emissions from slurry, we do need to look at seriously investing in AD, not only in large scale plants but in smaller plants too, in order to make it sustainable.

In the context of something that goes towards giving farmers an income, I have always favoured a carbon credits trading scheme.We all want to see more trees being planted but there is a situation where if farmers invest in measures that will ensure that there is carbon sequestration they do not benefit directly from the carbon credits. It is almost a communist system. The State is the one that controls it. Whereas if we allow the individual farmer or landowner to control their own carbon credits and be able to trade them, that may ultimately generate income for them.

I welcome Teagasc's investment of considerable time into research on carbon sequestration in our soils and what can be done in this regard. Some of the work that it is being done would have been helpful a number of years ago. It is essential that we look to invest in a big way in research. Partnership between Teagasc and the farming community in that area will be important.

Unlike Senator Mullen, I will not stray. There was not an Oxford comma after climate. The phrase "Climate and Agriculture" is very clearly used in the title to this debate.