The Beef Plan Movement (BPM) believes the Citizens’ Assembly has taken “a negative stance on agriculture” and it is concerned about the role the assembly is playing “in driving government policy”.
The BPM told Agriland that it has written to the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine to set out the views of its members in relation to the assembly’s recent biodiversity report.
The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss put forward 159 recommendations calling for greater enforcement and implementation of existing laws and policies to protect the natural environment, of which 17 are specific to agriculture.
In its letter to the committee the BPM accused the assembly of adopting “a hard-line, pseudo-green ideology which is being promoted by our government”.
The chair of the assembly, Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, has repeatedly said that farmers have “nothing to fear” from recommendations put forward by the assembly.
According to Dr. Ní Shúilleabháin, many of the recommendations reflect assembly members’ concerns over the “welfare of our farmers and the welfare of their family”.
“One key message we repeatedly heard from farmers was about their pride in their land and of their commitment to make sure the land is in the best condition for the generation coming after them; I think that that’s very well reflected in the assembly’s recommendations,” she said.
But the BPM also outlined in its letter to the Oireachtas committee that while there were farmers on the assembly, they “did not comment on the nitrates derogation as they did not know enough about it”.
“Nitrates are the single biggest threat to the biodiversity of our waterways,” the organisation stated.
“The fact that they openly admit that they were not informed enough to make a decision on derogation highlights that they were not informed enough to make any scientific decision on water biodiversity.”
In the letter, the BPM also raised the issue of the assembly’s stance on plant-based agriculture, relative to livestock-based production systems.
It outlined to the Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine that “the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has highlighted that the areas with the highest nitrate water pollution coincide with areas that have the most plant-based agriculture (in the east and southeast) and the counties with the highest population of suckler cows (Clare, Galway, Mayo) are among the counties with the lowest nitrates in their waterways”.
The BPM also claimed in its letter that “the Citizens’ Assembly voted down an amendment which stated that any review or change should be cognisant of the need to protect farmers’ livelihoods”.
“This puts the weight of biodiversity squarely on the shoulders of farmers who are already struggling with low margins.
“Farmers cannot be expected to support the European Union”s cheap food policy while also bearing the cost of new environmental regulations,” it stated.
The BPM also challenged why the Citizens’ Assembly had “proposed an export tax on Irish food leaving the country to fund environmental measures”.
“Such a move would make Irish produce uncompetitive in international markets and inflict irreparable damage to Irish agriculture,” it stated.
BPM vice-chair, John Moloney, told Agriland that the organisation believes the assembly is made up of “unknown people”.
“The government seems to be using the assembly as a scapegoat for driving policies that are unpopular with the public at large.”