'Lack of coordination' between Government departments on environment

Cliona Kelliher and Dr Liz Cullen at the Zoom meeting.

A picture of a destroyed farm hedgerow and a line of bird-boxes in its place has been described to illustrate the paradox of agricultural policies and the environment in Ireland, writes Brian Byrne.

"Apparently farmers get a subsidy for bird-boxes," Cliona Kelliher of Kilcullen Community 4 Climate Action told those participating in the recent Biodiversity and Health online discussion hosted by the group, after noting the photograph she had seen.

She said it was an example of policies which are 'contrary' to regenerating the land, while at the same time agriculture is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

"Ireland is basically just not tackling this at all," she said. "We need more diversity, more organic farms, but within a system that is fair to farmers too. We depend on them for our food, and they deserve an income as well as everyone else."

Commenting on the fires which had devastated areas of Kerry last year, she said this was the result of deliberate gorse burning in order to make sure that satellite monitoring would show farmers to have areas of grazeable land required for EU payments.

"We need to look at national and EU agriculture policies, to find a way to a fair transition to a better style of farming," she said, adding that there is a problem of lack of coordination between Government departments, one creating policies that were against climate action and another producing a 'wonderful action plan'.

Mark Reid told the meeting that demand has gone up for organic farm produce, but it takes time for people to establish organic enterprises, and that they are usually more labour intensive than mainstream farming.

Liz Cullen said there are plans to increase the number of organic growers, but the economic system doesn't help. "It should be down to taxing pesticides and not taxing labour on farms. Organic is more expensive because of the labour involved, and we should be taxing what's dangerous."

The full event can be watched on the group's Youtube channel. 

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy