From CAP to climate change, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar answered a number of questions from Irish Farmers Journal readers at an event on the farm of Frank Murphy in north Cork on Friday.

Readers emailed in their questions during the week, with acting news editor Amy Forde putting the questions to Varadkar during a Facebook live steam from the farm.

Proposed cuts to CAP - will Ireland increase budget contributions?

“We’d love to grow it if we could but we need to be realistic about what can be achieved and what can’t.

“We’ve a couple of countries that will pay no more in and most countries know that we aim to do more things around migration, security and research and development.

"What I want to ensure is that when it comes to doing those new things that we all need to do, is that it is not at the expense of CAP.”

We are willing to pay a bit more into the EU budget

“[Farmers are] right to be worried, so our objective is to make sure that doesn’t happen and to make sure that the budget is maintained and we’ve said that as a country we are willing to pay a bit more into the EU budget to protect the part of the budget that we feel to be the most important, part of which is CAP, and I think we can achieve that, and we’ve a lot of support from other countries as well.”

Brexit - will WTO tariffs be applied to the agri-food industry in a ‘no-deal‘ scenario?

“This is in the unlikely event of a no-deal Brexit, a hard Brexit happening overnight, which I think we will be able to avoid.

“In fact, I’m sure we’ll be able to avoid it, but we do have to contemplate the possibility that we could have a no-deal Brexit and in that scenario the agri-food industry would be very exposed.

“In that scenario we would be seeking special exemption, special treatment and state aid from the European Union, loans to help farms and businesses adapt to new markets, income supports and even infrastructure in our ports which would be very important too.

We are not working towards a no-deal Brexit

“But just to be very clear we are not working towards a no-deal Brexit. We believe that we can achieve a deal and that’s what we have to knuckle down on and work on over the next couple of months to avoid a hard border between north and south, like the common travel area, and try negotiate new trading arrangements between Britain and Ireland and the rest of Europe.

“What’s come out of Chequers today, although we need to seek detail on it, it's very much around a view from the United Kingdom, that the UK and the EU should form a common trade area, covering goods, including agriculture.”

Climate change - does agriculture deserve its bad reputation for carbon emissions?

“I think sometimes there’s a degree of misinformation around agriculture.

“There’s a lot of people around the country who don’t know agriculture, don’t realise that when it comes to dairy we’re the most carbon efficient (in Europe) and when it comes to beef we’re the top five or six, so if you displace production from Ireland to other countries that are less carbon efficient you’re not actually helping the environment at all.

But there’s no area that can get a free pass

“But there’s no area that can get a free pass, whether it’s transport, whether it’s energy or agriculture if we’re going to meet our climate change obligations.

“Every sector is going to have to reduce their emissions and that includes agriculture.

“That’s why things like the Beef Data and Genomics Programme and forestry and other mitigating measures are so important.

“We’ve all seen the impact of severe weather this year, farmers more so than anyone else, so it’s in all our interests to meet our obligations on climate change, not because it’s just the right thing to do from an altruistic point of view but it’s going to be really important for our rural economy as well.”

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