Horticulture growers have stressed the urgent need for action to be taken with regard to the harvesting of peat in Ireland on Bord na Móna sites, and have said that if action is not taken soon, peat will have to be sourced from outside of Ireland.
Speaking to Agriland at a protest held outside the Convention Centre in Dublin today (Tuesday, July 13), the chair of the Irish Hardy Nursery Stock Association, Val Farrell, said that “with the closure of Bord na Móna and other peat harvesting facilities, by next year we will have no peat”.
“We will have no choice but to import peat from the Balkans or elsewhere, if we can get it.
“We are here today to protest to the government to make an exemption for our industry. If we close down, we do not have peat moss.
“We only use 0.05% of the peat that is produced in Ireland for growing, and what we grow then goes back into the environment.”
In the video below, Agriland spoke to some of those attending today’s protest at the convention centre.
“We are not wasting the peat, we are actually using the peat to enhance the growing of plants for our industry and the whole country environmentally,” Farrell added.
‘Proper supply of peat’ needed for horticulture
South Leinster regional chairperson of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), Francie Gorman, told Agriland that the availability of peat for the horticulture sector is a “huge issue”.
Gorman said: “It’s up to Minister Hackett and Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, to ensure that there is a proper supply of peat that we can harvest on Bord na Móna sites for the horticulture sector.
“They can’t be asked to compete with the garden centres and with people buying bags of peat individually for their gardens, in order to have a supply for their business.
“Without a proper ready-made supply these boys will go out of business.
“At the end of the day we are talking about climate change and carbon footprints, and if we can’t have enough peat in this country to supply our horticulture sector, to me it makes a mockery of climate change,” he concluded.