Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact we will hopefully see the framework for the life carbon farming project. That framework will help farmers, foresters and other landowners take climate actions, reduce greenhouse gases and enhance carbon capture. We need EU-wide co-ordinated monitoring of ratification and reporting methods. I ask for a debate in the House on how the Minister is working with his EU counterparts on how we ensure an accurate measurement of what farms are carbon capturing currently, how we can enhance that, and how this will interact with the retaining of our nitrates derogation, which is so important to so many farmers throughout the country. I have done a lot of work examining what carbon farms capture and have brought it up under Commencement matters over the past couple of years. We can be carbon neutral fairly quickly, especially on small farms, if we start auditing and measuring carbon capture, and then enhance our soil quality and what we are growing on the land. This can secure the future of the small family farm model we have in Ireland, which we hold very dear. It would be a proper and very welcome move. I would like it if the Minister for agriculture came to the House to speak about it.