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An “immediate impact assessment” of Food Wise 2025 targets is a key recommendation in a new report on agriculture and climate change by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture as “the level of emissions represents a very serious problem”.
“We feel that the targets that have been set are hugely ambitious,” committee chair Pat Deering told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“While we believe that Irish agriculture can achieve those targets, we can’t bury our heads in the sand on the climate issue and there needs to be a more balanced approach.” The targets include an 85% increase in exports to €19bn and a 65% increase in primary production to €10bn.
His committee’s report takes on board a number of recommendations made by key industry stakeholders, including farm organisations and environment agencies.
It relays environmentalists’ concerns that the Origin Green brand “could cause serious reputational damage to Ireland when reconciled with the reality of our rising climate emissions”.
Emissions
Agriculture accounts for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forecasts that agricultural emissions will increase by up to 4% by 2020 despite European-mandated cuts.
The committee encourages the use of the next CAP to provide financial incentives to focus on livestock emissions, manure management and agricultural soils, rather than a carbon tax on farming as proposed last year by the Citizen’s Assembly.
The use of lime should be included in GLAS, and funding for the use of on-farm anaerobic digesters and research into the carbon mitigating effects of seaweed in animal feed should be rolled out.
The need to increase and support national tillage production to offset importing large quantities of soya for animal feed is also highlighted.
Crisis funding for farmers was also pointed out as an area that could be improved, especially in light of recent extreme weather events. Deering said: “We’re targeting the next CAP, and believe that a better crisis scheme should be developed that’s less restrictive than the current de minimis model,” which limits each EU member state’s support for farmers in an emergency.
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