According to Growing Media Ireland (GMI), the “urgency of the crisis facing the horticulture sector” due to peat shortages “is not appreciated by the departments tasked with solving the issue”.
Speaking at this morning’s (Tuesday, July 6) Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine session, John Neenan, chair of GMI said that the industry is in “a critical stage” with peat supplies, due to restrictions imposed on harvesting.
Representatives of the horticulture industry present at the meeting expressed disappointment that officials from the relevant departments – Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Department of Environment – were not present, as they were not available due to too short notice, according to the committee chair Jackie Cahill.
17,000 jobs in horticulture sector
With over 17,000 jobs in the Irish horticultural sector, Kieran Dunne of Kildare Growers Group said that what the industry provides to the rural economy should be “a good news story – but instead, we were thrown into crisis”.
“We have survived -18° frost, we’ve survived Brexit and we’ve worked our way through it, we have survived and stayed open right through Covid and kept all of our people employed,” Dunne told the committee.
“We can’t be asked to do anymore. We’ve survived the recession, which wasn’t easy with banks and overdrafts and loans. We’ve survived all of this; and we’re very proud of what we do and we’re hard-working people throughout rural communities.
“We’ve done our part; I’m bitterly disappointed with the lack of process, lack of progress, no timeframe and, I have to say, no real common sense – only we’ve three departments battling against each other.”
According to GMI, the horticulture sector has experienced “extreme challenges” over the past 18 months. Following a ruling of the High Court in 2019, harvesting of peat from bogs greater than 30ha now requires all companies to go through a “complex licensing and planning regime”.
Harvesting “has all but ceased – and Irish peat supplies will be exhausted by the end of September 2021”.
‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’
According to Dunne, the departments “have not ignored” the industry – but the “situation is so difficult that we have just not made progress”.
“It’s not easy to resolve this situation…but we have resolved so many other difficult issues, that it’s not impossible to resolve it. Where there’s a will there’s a way. All we want is the will,” Dunne said.
“The urgency was five months ago. It certainly is pretty urgent at this point in time.”
John Neenan said that the feeling in the industry is that the government departments “do not accept there is an emergency”.
“They think there is sufficient alternatives available, and that is clearly not the case and they don’t appear to understand that,” he said.
“They don’t appear to understand what it’s like to have a nursery, trying to get supplies, what do you tell your employees?”
GMI has acknowledged that there are substitutes to peat for horticulture, “but currently, there are not sufficient quantities of alternatives which are available, affordable, environmentally sustainable and that meet the quality requirements of growing media”.
Issue ‘fallen between 3 departments’
“Further research is urgently required to both develop and trial both new and existing alternatives. The research must include the environmental performance of the proposed alternatives,” GMI said.
“The present alternatives available cannot currently replace peat and the decision to make peat harvesting all but impossible in Ireland is short-sighted and undermines both the Irish horticultural sector and Ireland’s commitment to global climate action.”
The reality, according to GMI, is that the issue “has fallen between three departments”, allowing “no one department to take responsibility for finding a solution”.
“The resulting inaction and confusion have allowed the issue drift towards a situation where peat harvesting will continue to be suspended; domestic supplies will soon be exhausted; and the sector will be left dependent on imports from abroad.”
Members of the Oireachtas committee have given a commitment to arrange an urgent meeting with the departments to “find an immediate resolution”.
GMI is seeking the introduction of emergency legislation to enable a resumption of peat harvesting.