“The world does not need Ireland to feed it,” according to Minister of State Pippa Hackett, “we are not obliged to feed 40 million or 50 million people – but we are obliged to meet our climate targets”.

Speaking on the climate bill in the Seanad recently, the minister said that food is “something we, in Ireland, produce in abundance”.

“Unfortunately, however, we have pushed things too far in the wrong direction and need to address that,” she said.

“Like all of society, agriculture must change too. How we use our land and farm it is central to this.

“When agriculture and climate change are spoken about in the same conversation, polar opposite views are often expressed.

“Common ground disappears and common sense evaporates but we should be careful with the rhetoric.

“While noisy exchanges make for good radio or television, they do little to move the debate on, and this serves no one.”

‘We are obliged to meet our climate targets’

Minister Hackett said that the message is simple: “accepting that farming must work within the ecological limits it is bound by”.

“We have pushed against those boundaries for too long and we see the effects in our water, air and natural world,” she continued.

“Interestingly, the climate action plan and the Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] share the same acronym; but the similarity should not end there.

“I cringed when I heard a recent comment that the objective of the first CAP, in 1962, was to produce cheap food.

“No doubt, anyone defending such a view would have said it was what the people wanted, but we should just look at what we have created as a result: a race to the bottom, with ever-increasing input costs, decreasing returns and the natural environment pushed to the brink.

“When, in the design of the upcoming CAP, the citizens of the EU were consulted on what they wanted their money to be spent on, cheap food did not get a mention.

“The three most pressing issues were delivering a fair standard of living for farmers, removing pressures on the environment and dealing with climate change.”

The minister said that “the consumer won’t pay” is a “frequent chant – yet when consumers have access to higher quality food with a lower carbon footprint that is biodiversity and habitat friendly, they will pay”.

“Those are the consumers we in Ireland should target,” the minister said.

“We are not obliged to feed 40 million or 50 million people, but we are obliged to clean our water and our air, protect habitats and meet our climate targets. That is what we must do.

“The world does not need Ireland to feed it. The world needs Ireland to work for justice. Climate justice is a big part of that.

“Most world hunger and poverty result from war, political unrest, breakdowns in supply chains and greed.

“The effects of conflict and war are exacerbated by a changing climate, with even more people displaced from their homes, making life-threatening trips from their home countries not just to escape oppression but also increasingly unlivable land and climate.”