Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 1557: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of farmers using their land for the production of alternative energy sources with details of the type of production involved and a breakdown for different counties. [29925/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Overall responsibility for energy policy in Ireland, including renewable energy rests with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Alternative energy sources encompass a wide range of materials and processes including wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and bioenergy. My Department is implementing the agri-related actions in the National Bioenergy Action Plan to support the production of Bioenergy at farm level. Agriculture and forestry have the potential to produce a wide range of feedstocks for use in the bioenergy market including purpose grown energy crops, wood energy and utilising farm and food wastes for energy.

Many farmers have diversified into energy crop cultivation following the introduction of new incentives by my Department in 2007 to stimulate production. The measures include a National Energy Crop Premium of €80 per hectare and a Bioenergy Scheme providing establishment grants of €1,450 per hectare to grow willow and miscanthus. An additional premium of €45 per hectare is also available under the EU Energy Crops Scheme.

There is also potential to supply energy through the use of grass or farm wastes as feedstock. In 2007, my Department awarded grants of €4m to ten anaerobic digestion projects under the 'Scheme of Investment Aid for Demonstration On Farm Waste Processing Facilities'. The table below details the number of farmers who were awarded grants for anaerobic digestion facilities in 2007 and who have applied for energy crops grants in 2008:

In addition, forestry has significant capacity to contribute to the production of alternative energy. Currently, Ireland's forest resource amounts to approximately 710,000 hectares. Farmers privately own approximately 320,000 hectares of this land and they are already supplying wood biomass to the energy sector. The above table does not include details of farmers engaged in wood energy, as the information is not readily available.