The Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, believes there will be a reduction in national herd numbers “as sure as night follows day”.
But Minister Ryan told Agriland that this reduction will happen “naturally”.
“Firstly, the income from the existing model, particularly in beef, suckler, sheep and others, isn’t there and therefore there’s likely to be a natural reduction – we don’t see people replacing the farmers who are there at the moment.
“There will also, in the dairy sector, be a need to reassess the numbers because what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says is correct – our rivers particularly in the south and the east, are saturated with nitrogen and phosphorus and we have to restore those waters.
“If we don’t, agriculture is the most at risk community because we are trading on an Origin Green brand, the biggest risk is that if you [are going] out saying, ‘we’re all green and this product is green’ and if someone comes back and says well actually you’re not because your waters are polluted, then the premium we get for our produce, would disappear overnight.”
The minister also told Agriland in a sit-down On the Record video interview (see above) that he would like to see further funding ring-fenced in Budget 2024 to support farmers and biodiversity projects.
“We have the Common Agricultural Policy and we will have new revenues coming in on the energy side – that’s for certain and for real.
“We do need to look at more new innovative schemes, particularly on the restoration side and start thinking about pilot schemes there where we test and then deploy more widely,” Minister Ryan said.
Ryan on the future of agriculture
He said fundamentally his “vision” for the future of agriculture is that it is part of a “vibrant rural Ireland”.
Minister Ryan said there farmers will have to prepare for a changing climate – more rainfall particularly in the north and and west and more drought – like the summer of 2018 – particularly in the south and east.
“In my mind it is obviously still centrally based around food production but I think farming will have far stronger role in forestry as well, in agro-forestry,” he added.
“It is not as if the farming communities themselves don’t realise there needs to be change – they are voting with their feet, they are going into the new schemes that have been created to restore the environment – they see this already as part of the future,” the minister added.