Increase in dairy herd ‘unsustainable’ – EPA’s DG Laura Burke

Transformation is needed in agriculture, the director general at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned.

Laura Burke believes that if agriculture in Ireland continues to operate the way it is currently doing, it will not meet its environmental targets.

“We can’t keep doing the same things and expect a different result and that’s the long and the short of it – so transformation is needed,” the EPA’s director general told Agriland for the ‘On the Record‘ series.

She believes the “increase in production” has had an impact on environment – not just in Ireland, but right across Europe and further afield.

n an in-depth interview with Agriland, the EPA director general said: “What is agriculture going to look like in the future so that it’s still thriving, still productive but it is not having this disproportionate impact on the environment; the sector needs to transform and we can’t keep doing the same things and expect a different result.”

She said it was not “an all or nothing” scenario for Irish farmers but there were key questions that now needed to be answered by agriculture in Ireland.