Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 November 2016
12. Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department will create a roadmap for achieving the agriculture aspect of the 2050 carbon emission targets, as recommended in the first report of the Climate Change Advisory Council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37568/16]
View answerI call Deputy Wallace. I remind him that there might not be time for a supplementary question.
It was disappointing to read the sections on agriculture in the first report of the Climate Change Advisory Council. It is not clear that there is a strong appetite among the members of the advisory council to address the rising levels of greenhouse gases in the sector. The council's approach is summed up by the following sentence from its report, "an approach to carbon neutrality in the agriculture and land-use sector, including forestry [is envisaged] which does not compromise capacity for sustainable food production." The report does not define "carbon neutrality" or "sustainable food production". The Minister might do so.
The Climate Change Advisory Council has stated in its report that the national mitigation plan should provide a roadmap to achieve the national 2050 mitigation objective, which, for agriculture, is an approach to carbon neutrality in the agriculture and land-use sector, including forestry, which does not compromise capacity for sustainable food production. I am disappointed that the Deputy would rail against that specific provision. If there is a growing global population, those people have to be fed, so one does not dismantle food production systems on the altar of carbon efficiency, although people must be fed in the most carbon efficient manner.
My Department has been actively involved in the development of the national mitigation plan, which is being led by the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. The agriculture and forestry sectoral contribution to the plan, outlining the mitigation actions we are taking in the sector, has been submitted as part of that process.
Irish agricultural production has been independently and internationally recognised as one of the most climate and resource-efficient agrifood production systems in the world. That is not self-praise. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre report of 2010, Evaluation of the livestock sector’s contribution to the EU greenhouse gas emissions, recognised that Ireland, with Austria, has the lowest cow milk emissions as well as the lowest emissions per kilo of pork. However, there is no room for complacency and we will continue to work with all stakeholders to find even greater efficiencies and reduce emissions further. This will not be an easy task, particularly in light of the limited cost-effective mitigation options available in agriculture. However, we continue to make efforts, and polices such as Food Wise 2025 provide a framework for the sector to engage with the national mitigation plan and for the development of a common vision of transition to a low carbon future.
If we wanted to deal with food security, we would lean a lot more towards tillage because we can feed many more people through tillage than through beef. Beef is feeding the rich world but it is not feeding anything like the same numbers elsewhere. With the same resources that go into producing 1 kg of beef, we can produce 24 kg of food from tillage. Consequently, there is no comparison.
It suits the Minister's argument to make out that I am attacking the farmers. I was born on a 36 acre farm and I reared pigs for years. I had 500 pigs at one point.
We are the most carbon-efficient producers of pork.
I am interested in food production. Ireland should have an educational programme promoting less consumption of red meat and a healthier diet. This notion that we will continue to produce more and more beef for the export market does not make any sense.
Before the Minister responds, I would like to apologise to Deputies McConalogue and Martin Kenny, who have waited patiently for more questions, but the time has expired. The Minister has one minute and there will be no more supplementary questions.
I do not mean to undermine Deputy Wallace's bona fides in respect of livestock; I think he has done that himself. He is singing the praises of the tillage sector. We need all of the sectors but we need balance in the debate as well. The Deputy should make himself a little better informed about carbon sequestration in the tillage sector. We need balance in the debate. We are committed in the agriculture sector and in my Department to reducing the carbon footprint further. The net point is that we have done a lot but we have some considerable distance to go. It would be foolish to sacrifice us on the altar of climate change and have the required food production outsourced to countries that have far larger carbon footprints. That would be illogical in the extreme. While we have more to do across all the sectors, including dairy, beef, tillage and forestry, we have travelled some considerable distance, something for which we never get any credit.
