 It's a wild night out there, so a big shout out to a few who came in on their bikes, believe it or not, this evening. So fair play. The title of the event this evening is Green Europe, What Place for Sustainable Agriculture. I'm Eamoney Vraenon. Some of you will know I present the talk show on local radio, KCLR Live. It's on 10 to 12. And one of the big stories today in the media is actually cold play, believe it or not. And they're not touring because of climate change fears. So Chris Martin has said he is to try and find a new way to promote his album. So that's just something I'm going to put out there. So climate change, whether you're a member of cold play or you're a farmer from Mullinavatt, it's very real at the moment. We have a fantastic line up of speakers. And we're going to cover a range of topics. We want it to be lively. We're going to invite you to engage with them, to ask questions, and you will have an opportunity to quiz them. So bear with us. We're going to let them have their say first. And then if there's something that you feel we haven't covered, I'll let you come in. It's not about bamboozling you with scientific facts. It's not about lecturing you or there's a term out there now, farm shaming. It's about figuring out our journey. We're all figuring it out and we're trying to see what steps we need to take because climate change is real. We, the citizens of Ireland, have spoken. We have demanded change. And this was seen recently in the European and local elections. And it's now seen with young people out on the streets. The young people who are out, I've spoken to lots of them. They feel there's a gap. There's a gap between them and me. And there's a gap between them and their parents, their grandparents. They think perhaps that Greta Thunberg is their inspiration. Their parents might feel otherwise. Their grandparents might feel they had a less wasteful approach to all of our resources. So lately, as you all know, there's been a spotlight on agriculture. The need for the sector, especially for the Irish ag sector to cut greenhouse gases. Many of you talked to me about Philip Boucher Hayes' documentary on RT1 recently. And a lot of our listeners, as it happens, they're predominantly from rural backgrounds, their farmers. And they feel they've been unfairly targeted. That we need to look at industry. We need to look at the behaviour of multinationals. That we need to look at the bigger picture outside of Ireland. So let's find out what our panel thinks. Let me introduce them to you. You may know them already. But we have the chairperson of the Iraq Disagriculture Committee to my left here. He's also a Finagwale TD for this area, Pat Dearing. He's served in this constituency as a TD since 2011. Also a very active member of the IFA, so Pat, you're very welcome. And Pat's constituency colleague, Bobby Ailward, also joins us. Bobby is a Finafol TD for this area. Spokesperson, junior spokesperson for farming and skills. He's also from south of the county. So when I call him for an interview, he's either out in a field somewhere or he could be in Lenster House, so he's got the farming background as well. And it's lovely to meet in person tonight, Dr Pippa Hackett. She was elected as a senator for Leisha Offoli very recently, actually. And it was the green wave. Some of you may realise has reached Offoli because Pippa was elected to Offoli County Council for the Green Party in the last local elections. So I'm sure it's been a real baptism of fire. She's highly qualified academically in the area that we're going to talk about tonight. These days, she's taken leave from her academic research to raise her family. And she lives on a mixed organic farm keeping suckler cows, sheep, hens and horses. Also with us tonight, we have Pat O'Keefe. He's the corporate affairs director with Glombia Ireland. And Pat, you may be very familiar with this byline. Hard for me to believe it's a few years since he's been writing for the farmer's journal because he spent 17 years there. So he was very accomplished, very well respected as a reporter and he was deputy editor there. He's from East Cork, but we're not going to hold that against him tonight. You're very welcome to Kilkenny Pat. And later you will see Professor Frank O'Mara will be joining us on the stage. He's enroute from Dublin. He's at another event this evening. He's director of research at Chogos since 2009. I'm really looking forward to hearing his contribution because he's responsible for leading the research programme. So that's every aspect of agri food research from soils to consumers and an annual budget of 67 million euro. He lectured previously in UCD for 13 years. So we're going to start with some opening questions. I have a question each for each of our panellists tonight before we move on to a broader discussion and then we'll very much welcome your input from the floor. So I'll start with you Pat. You're used to having the heat on you so you're not too worried. You're well prepared for tonight. Pat, we wanted to ask you about mitigating the worst effects of climate change. It's going to require change. And recently we saw with the ESB's announcement they closed two peat burning plants in the midlands. How do we ensure that the workers in these jobs are protected and your Iraq this committee discussed recently the establishment of the Just Transition Task Force. Is this something you're in favour of? Absolutely. I think it's important that there will be by and by everybody going forward. I'm a member of the Climate Action Committee as well which over a number of months last year put together a report which fell into the all government plan which was produced a number of months ago now at this stage. I think we're the only country in Europe at the moment that has a plan going forward. But it's very important, going back to your question, it's very important that there will be a task force together going forward. There's going to be change. We see in the last number of weeks in Pippa's area in particular where you mentioned the board in the morning substantial change coming down from regard and we must be ready for those change going forward. From that culture perspective our culture is the largest indigenous industry in this country. I think it's unfair to kind of equate it with other countries like for example Germany which is a very industrial country or Britain for example, a very industrial country compared to ourselves. It's our largest indigenous industry. 130,000 people are employed in our culture directly in Ireland. Indirect is probably 300,000 people. We're a food producing country. We produce enough food in this country to feed 50 million people which is a huge achievement. I think from that point of view in the event that change is coming and change will come I think there's no doubt that every farmer matter who you talk to, I'm a farmer myself, farmers have to be part of the solution, not part of the problem going forward. But they have to be bought along the journey. Very similar to everybody else. And the journey is going to be difficult in some ways but there's going to be a cost involved in that as well and there is no doubt that going green is costly and we see in the last period of time that the cost involved in this as I've said before and I'll say again especially from a farming point of view we see during the year the difficulties in the beef sector we cannot go green if we're in the red. I think it's a very important point. What that means is that farmers are not getting paid for what they produce. They cannot afford to move to the next stage. So in saying that I think the crucial thing going forward is going to be the next cap which is presently being negotiated. It is going to be a change cap for what we were used to in the past but at the same time the farmers have to go along the journey. I think there has to be a huge element of communication with all people going forward. I think there's been and I would have to be critical of farmers and farm organisations, maybe politicians in the past for not communicating what has been done or the past number of years. In previous caps a lot of very, very good initiatives were introduced such as the Rep scheme for example which was a very, very good initiative or the past number of years where water courses and farms were cleaned up, hedge roads were developed and so on and they are hugely beneficial for the future of farming and development of farm land and maintenance of farm land for the future. Okay, thank you Pat. Senator Pipa Hackett, we want to ask you about how climate change is at the forefront of all of our minds and to some it feels the change, we know how important it is but it can feel like it's insurmountable that making all of the changes. When it comes to ag, given your own farming background what are the steps that you think that every farmer could take to lower their carbon footprint? Thank you, it's great to be here tonight. I suppose we actually do constantly hear the negatively framed narrative that how much is going to cost us to go green, what is the cost of climate action, can we afford to make the necessary changes? I think the good news for many farmers is that actually lowering their carbon footprint off their farms should be relatively pain free and should actually, if done correctly, save the money and perhaps even earn them extra money so farm income really for me is the important thing. I think a lot of farmers as we were we converted to organic farming about eight years ago and we felt very tied down to the same farm routines listening to the same sort of advice and there was little opportunity or incentive to break away from that norm model of farming and this was really one of the main reasons we decided to convert to organic farming, fair enough the scheme was open which was the enticement and the incentive necessary but it definitely gave us the sense that we were in charge of our farms and that we took charge of it so we didn't really have that sort of guilt of we missed the date to get the fertilizer out or we didn't spray the nettles in time we just sort of got on with it and it was up to us, we thought further ahead and we used that to our advantage in a weird way I suppose our neighbours it was a bit of a talking point oh god they've gone organic and we're going backwards and it was perceived as negative or maybe unkempt looking fields because we have a few nettles and docks and so forth growing but it's more accepted now so it's about having a different view about how we farmer land and what we do with it now I'm not here to just promote organic farming but I'm more about to tell you the lessons that we have learnt and even now if we were to be conventional farmers again we probably wouldn't change anything that we have been doing for the last 8 years because it works for us it works for any farmer to try and lower their carbon footprint on any farm is to look at your farm accounts see where your outgoings are see where your incoming amounts are because we can't do very much about the price we're getting for our product but the only thing you can control are the expenses you put inside your farm gate you put 100% control over that so think about that where you could make the adjustments do you have really high diesel bills is there something you could do to restrict the amount of tractor work you do do you have have you a huge outlay on nitrogen fertilizer or whatever fertilizer you're using is there an option there to really cut that back I mean if you're a beef farmer and you're only getting 3.45 or 3.50 it's creeping up by all accounts but I'll wait and see how that pans out but if you're only getting that amount for your beef cut your fertilizer right down I would because you're not getting paid for it and you're spending money to actually lose money so cut your costs so I mean that would be a very broad sweeping way of looking at practically at where to reduce the costs same for things like veterinary inputs if you have very high veterinary inputs are they due to tough calvings or are you calling vets out for caesarians and so forth or we actually converted to organic we changed our breeds we had been generally sort of shallowly crosses we had suffix as our sheep and we changed our stock bull and we changed our rams and you know within a couple of years you've actually changed the whole profile of your herd or your flock and we went for easier calving smaller animals we went for more native breeds we went for ones that could manage outdoors without having to be sort of tended to 24-7 so it had certain resilience built into them one thing I will say I know we'll probably come back to it and I've a whole pile of stuff written here but farmers should sign up to every agri-environmental scheme you can I do have my doubts about the merits of some of them but still they're there and if they do or whether they don't do exactly what they say on the tin your likelihood is you will increase your farm income it might be only by a small amount but it's still money in your pocket and your emissions might well go down so you will be lowering your carbon outputs I mean it's disappointing to see the relatively low uptake from farmers on the recent beam scheme that's for any farmers or any non-farmers that's the beef exceptional aid measure which was brought in as a support due to the uncertainty of Brexit that money wasn't all you know taken up so I mean that sends back a really bad message you know so apply for the schemes a lot of them are that one was particularly easy to apply for and you can sign your name and send it in there are certain farmers who feel it's not worth the effort it's too much it's too restrictive and that but I mean if you really genuinely feel that then you're probably not in need of the scheme at all sign up for the schemes I'll leave it at this just to think that farmers on the whole need to start thinking about their land in a different way it's not just this innate thing that's there just to that we pump full of fertilizer to maximise production because that's very costly and it's also damaging the land it's damaging your soil and it's probably not helping your wider biodiversity and finally for me any measure which gives me back more time in my life has to be a saving so quality of life is very rarely factored in to any farm figures or any equations that we get some people may never run out of money but we will all eventually run out of time I'll do me thank you okay we've lots of I definitely have and I'm sure our audience do have lots of questions coming from that so we'll definitely be coming back to Pippa shortly on some of those issues Pat O'Keefe, we've heard on T Shuckly of Radker speak about his own personal decisions to opt for a meatless Mondays we're increasingly seeing consumers incorporating incorporating vegan into their diet vegetarian meals etc how is Glanbia reacting to this or trying to guide consumer behaviours as a consequence of the challenges posed by climate change thank you Ymer and thanks Q to the organisation for the invitation and it's been touched on already in your introduction I think certainly farmers in Ireland feel under siege at the moment in terms of the narrative around vegan and I suppose in your question you say how is Glanbia changing I mean ultimately the consumers always right in the sense of Glanbia as a company has to respond to consumer demand and provide consumers with what they ask for what they demand so we're well known obviously as a dairy company but again since 2010 there's been a food-grade oats plant in Port Leish and farmers in Kerala and Kilkenny have been growing oats so recently we launched a porridge product with dairy and oats and gluten free product grown from this part of the country and that's there's going to be new innovations in that same sphere because again we have great oats grown in Ireland that we can build on and that's going to be a great innovation product that will be plant-based alternatives with the last number of years in the US for example our best known product in the US is gold standard whey which is obviously a dairy product but there's a plant-based alternative for that so if the consumer says I want that brand but I want a plant-based version you give the consumer that option so you don't rule out a consumer I suppose from a dairy perspective and again I think we have a job of work to do to educate consumers more to inform choice if they choose to go elsewhere for their nutrients that's their choice but I do have a problem and we saw a bit of this last week with people being misled on the nutrient advice by unqualified people and there's no one getting into debates about that specifically other than the fact that nutrition is a crucial thing in every child and every adult's well-being so we can't mess with it so in other words dairy can put its credentials forward and make its case as a nutrient other products should likewise set out the facts in a very clear way and then we need healthy diets based on scientific and based on factual advice if I say anything about primary I have a vested interest that's a fact because I have a vested interest in the glambia perspective but I don't believe in misleading people in terms of the nutrient content so I think that's really important I mean at the moment there's a lot of noise as well about calling products meat or calling them milk and again I think Europe is probably better than other areas that are tightening up on that in terms of clarity because consumers I'm a scientific background but when you go into a supermarket and look at the shelf it's very confusing all the noise, all the stuff claims, natural, wholesome, gym free it's very hard organic the whole thing has become very blurred for consumers who are not scientists I think companies have a responsibility very clear I suppose from an Irish farmer point of view we have to tell our story better also in schools in a factual way and I agree with Pippa in terms of the nutrients I don't like her language just to pick up in terms of farmers pumping their soil with fertilizer because again that's kind of provocative language inferring that one particular system and it's that kind of language and I don't mean to be zoning in it but organic is a very good system conventional farming is a very good system and we shouldn't be knocking one or the other and I'd much prefer a kind of a less of the sort of knocking one system and saying look I'm proud of what I do this is how I produce my food and I'll stand over it like our farmers we've 400,000 farmers who produce milk some of them are here in the audience they're very proud of what they do, they're very passionate they have to be ordered by Borby a Diff to stand over their food organic producers are really passionate about what they do and likewise they have to stand over what they produce and I think both of them should extend and I think we're starting to see it a little bit talking together rather than talking at each other because a lot of the conventional farmers now tell me they want to learn more about biodiversity we have a programme we're involved in Cork and I'm drifting off the question a little bit but the bright programme what would be perceived as intensive dairy farmers are involved in a programme to improve the amount of wildlife on their farm about biodiversity and it's working very well but it's a pilot programme scale and fairness to the farmers involved they got the money, we need to build on that we need to do way more in terms of we ffinsed off the rivers through reps a number of years ago we need to build on that now in terms of more riparian zones to protect the water courses there's a whole lot we can do but I think I want to start talking together rather than talking at each other and sort of one system is better than the other the consumers bamboozled we need to be honest with them, set out the facts of the products and have an honest conversation about food and not be sort of slamming one product I mean it's not helpful I think from a consumer education point of view in terms of informing the choices OK, thank you very much some very interesting points there we're going to move on to Bobby Aylward Ffinnifall Deputy Bobby the implications of Brexit the possible ramification of the Mercuser trade deal it's all adding up to what might be described as a perfect storm for the Irish beef sector and with the need to combat climate emissions added into that mix what can we do to protect the sector's competitiveness there's no doubt about it Brexit is coming down the road there's nothing we can do about it we have to accept it that's a democracy decision by the people of Great Britain and they decided they want to pull over Europe so we have to accept that as we all know we produce 90% of the beef we produce and beef I talk about in particular now we produce in this country is exported we export enough to feed 30 million people and there's only 5 million people in this country and unfortunately 50% of that beef goes directly into Great Britain so we have a problem coming down the line and then we have the Mercuser deal which is another problem and I don't think that deal should have been signed over it's not fully signed up to yet but it's moving that way and it looks like the deal is going to go through so it's my belief that we should have a set and Minister Michael Creed has said that he will commission an impact assessment honoured I think that impact assessment should have been carried out before it was ever even contemplated an agenda on the Mercuser deal and agreeing with it to see what kind of an impact this Mercuser 99 new ton of beef coming into this country and there's already on 75,000 ton of beef coming in from South America from the country of South America and to add another 99,000 ton on top of that it's going to have serious consequences for us in this country and the whole of Europe at the moment with Britain we're self-sufficient of 102% beef so we're 2% over what we eat in beef in Europe when Britain pulls out which should happen shortly within the next couple of months will be 160% self-sufficient so we have 16% of more beef than we're taking than we're consuming at the moment now we're trying to get markets in other places like China etc and we're trying to get markets all over the world small at the moment and get open up these markets and get into these new areas we're going to have serious problems and that's why I think this impact assessment should have been carried out first I know France are very angry over this extra beef coming in and didn't just beef the chicken as well and pig meat as well under this agreement and it's my understanding that the reason why of course international trade agreements has to be part of life but my understanding is that the care industries in Europe want to get access to Europe into South America and this is why this world trade agreement has been taken place so look at Germany who has produced our cows want to get their cows and we'll travel cow and emissions and cows and geese you know what that is and they want to get them over there so we have to do likewise a trade give them access so we can get access to their markets then we have traceability we are scrutinised here in Ireland a traceability system in place where we know our beef our quality beef where it comes from every animal that's killed anyone can trace it back within half an hour where it came from what farm it came from have we the same traceability in South America will the standards be the same will the beef be the same standards as we have here if not should it be allowed in and these are questions that need to be asked and I think these are questions that need to be assessed France as I said we are very angry over this extra beef in Ireland they are about the traceability and we have like-minded countries that we should be talking to to see is this a good deal and is this a good deal for beef so you know the cattle emissions we are responsible for as I say we farmers are responsible agriculture is responsible for 33% of the greenhouse gases emissions at the moment oh yes they are more with my colleagues three or four colleagues best are in the climate change and how we are going to go forward in agriculture 2030 under the greens in agriculture we have to get a reduction of 10% to 15% reduction in agriculture how we are going to marry that we are going to increase our health as this happened 20% to 30% more dairy cows in the last four years since the big quotas were lifted and there is a big demand for more products and more beef and 2050 there is a maintain we need three times more agricultural product to feed the world at that stage so we have to marry our list together I think farmers are and there are a few members here today and I spoke to them several times during the year they are all willing to play their part and they are means and they are explaining to us means how it can be done and there is a terrible research that is going on now we are spreading slurry the collage we are spreading up there if you stitch it in the ground you can see many thousands of emissions by doing the hello on we are even talking about dietary for animals genomics with a little breed of animals not as big an animal lesser maintain gas can be passing and that kind of thing so there is a lot of means there and that is only a few of my charts and ways of reducing greenhouse gases in farming down to 15-20% 10-15% is targeted for farming in the next 10 years that is what we have to do and I think we will reach that with a good smart management smart farming so I think that is the way to go thank you very much Bobby Ellworth you are very welcome Professor Frank O'Mara thank you very much for being with us you have said recently that Irish agriculture can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the national herd how is this possible when we see the government's climate change advisory council suggesting a cut in the suckler herd of over 53% ok well good evening unfortunately apologies to all the audience my co-panelists here and the IIA for my later arrival I was down the country at a training event for co-op board members and executive members on this very topic and I can tell you the interest was huge among those people about it so it was hard to get out of the room in time but look Bobby I think has alluded to the complexity of this we often look at things in one dimension we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions there are loads of other things we have to do as well we have to improve water quality we have to improve biodiversity but also the world the population of the world is going to grow by about 2 billion but in the next 30 years they have to be fed farmers have to make money things have to go on at the one time and just it's often hard or wrong to kind of just pick out one problem and say this is why we deal with that without looking at the consequences on the other but having said that you've asked the question and the climate change commission was set up by the government to kind of you know give independent to oversight and advice to the government as to what it was doing and what options might be available to it and one option they looked at for agriculture as to how it might achieve a 30% reduction in emissions was to cut the national error now when they did that they didn't take into account and it wasn't like I'm not saying the study was flawed or anything like that but they just looked at how many numbers would you need to drop to get that reduction there are other ways to get that reduction there are ways through mitigation that I talk about in a second so that was one particular scenario they looked at the government in the meantime then has come along and having consulted with all the stakeholders and the citizens assembly on climate change the report of the giant the rock does committee and so on and taken all that information into account came forward with the climate action plan to get Ireland on track to meet its obligations in the 2021 to 2030 period and in that as Bobby just said and I'm sure others may have said it before I got here Ireland has our agriculture in Ireland has a target to reduce its emissions by sort of 10 to 15% there's a range given and suppose it depends where you start from the analysis that we have done in Chagos looking at the mitigation options that are available things that farmers can do right now to reduce emissions shows that we can achieve that level of reduction if we adopt those emissions so that's why I've said we can avoid a reduction in the national herd and still meet the targets that are set for agriculture in the climate action plan the big if after that if we adopt the mitigation measures and we need to adopt them soon as well you know we can't wait until 2028 and 2029 this has got to start now because it's not a target to reach in 2030 we actually have targets in 2021 2022 every year so the things Bobby has done a great job about lining some of them there you know there's the way we spread our slurry and I suppose in developing what we call mitigation options these are things we mean to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we've been very conscious of trying to develop workable solutions things that won't cost an arm and a leg for farmers things that can actually be applied that are reasonably practical so one of them is the trailing shoe it's a different way of spreading slurry instead of, as Bobby said trolling it up into the air you get a lot of alatolisation that's the greenhouse gas going off up into the air instead of that trickle down along the ground or injected you get better value out of the slurry in terms of the subsequent grass growth the other big thing that we're suggesting or one of the other big things is the type of fertilizer that we use farmers need to use fertilizer to grow grass nitrogen is one of those fertilisers the form of nitrogen that we use in this country is called CAN calcium ammonium nitrate that's the one we mainly use if we switch that to urea we get a big drop in greenhouse gas emissions because that can about 1% that goes off up into the atmosphere has a very very powerful greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful of the greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide so even 1% of it going up into the atmosphere is hugely damaging from a climate by the view switching to urea negates most of that the problem is just a straight switch to urea is you're swapping one pollutant for another urea emits a lot of ammonia which is another gas not a greenhouse gas but another harmful gas so there's a form of urea called protected urea that doesn't emit the ammonia and still gives you the benefit of the reduced greenhouse gases so that's another solution that farmers can adopt there's then good farming practice like running your herd as efficiently as possible making as much use of grass as you can incorporate and clover in your pastures and reduce the nitrogen as a result so there's a number of items there's no one silver bullet there's a number of actions that farmers can take to reduce the emissions and if we do that that's how we can square the circle and are farmers doing that at the moment are they taking up those ideas and running with them now or is it a slow uptake well look certainly some of them are going to be a slow uptake like the switching of fertilizer type that's a new thing and none of us like change if I said to people there now go home tonight and say to your wife your husband or your partner you want to sleep on the other side of the bed tonight and see the reaction you'll get to that no one will like change but I think the protected area that's slowly becoming I suppose in farmers conscience this is something they can do I think farmers have shown over the years a great ability to take up technology when it's proven by Chogysg and it's easier to implement and it's supported by government I mean it doesn't have to be all farmers and fairings I'm 45 years of age working in the agricultural sector since coming to college I've seen huge amount of technology like the EBI I mean that was a new technology breeding index for cows that farmers brought in a lot of farmers are crying out for more research from Chogysg to say can I use more clover will I have problems how do I use it properly we brought out a solar scheme this year in terms of an opportunity for farmers to reduce their electricity bills to reduce their carbon footprint to heat the water for their dairy we've 600 farmers expressed interest like we've 4,500 milk players 600 signed up straight away now they haven't all put in solar panels but they've expressed interest so in other words they put a hand up and say I'm willing to invest now they want government support to help to make that transition no different than the grants for retrofitting energy technology with the right support from the likes of Chogysg but also government support and solar policy needs central government policy that encourages farmers we've seen it in Europe where good policies from simple governments you've had bioenergy, you've had biogas across Germany, France there's a load of things we can do better from a policy perspective that will drive the change and farmers and fairness to them are always very adaptable and willing to adapt and write a check to new technology OK, you said something earlier Pippet about the poor uptake in the beef scheme in the beam scheme why do you think that is any idea or maybe that maybe I don't know, I've spoken to different farmers I visited a group of dairy farmers in Eastcork last year and I actually asked just listened mainly and I asked one of the questions was I said are you any of you using glass in the glass scheme and they weren't because it was going to be too prohibatory it was going to restrict what they did so there's a problem with the scheme if it's not even engaging with farmers who could engage with it maybe they you could question maybe what's in the scheme itself but I mean we talk about looking for better markets for beef and so forth, well more markets I mean there's no point opening up a market to China if it's still only going to pay 50 a kilo, that's no good to our Irish farmers now I wasn't actually slamming conventional farming I was trying to pass off the wisdom I have learned from organic farming I'm educated as an agriculturalist in the very traditional way and I was fascinated when I was at university learning about it and the efficiencies and all of these things that can be brought in but I mean the plain and simple fact is I think even if we do apply all the roadmap features of the chagos suggestions we cannot decouple our emissions from the expansion of the dairy herd some of this like the BDGP was questioned as the beef data and genomics programme was questioned by EU auditors as to its environmental outcomes is it actually performing chagos have recently abandoned their better beef programme which was one of your flagship programmes there's a lot of demonstration farms which have fallen aside being run so tightly and so efficiently we need resilience in farming we need to have that sort of buffer zone and I think we haven't had that and that's where things start to fall apart you need that freedom look I do and look I know you probably didn't mean it but I hate to use that kind of motive language we've abandoned something we haven't abandoned beef farmers no we have more when I come to that we have more resources allocated to beef than we've ever had we're advertising for three new researchers in Grange they had to go out in the next week or so but the better beef programme in conjunction with the farmers journal and three of the meat companies has been running for 10 or 12 years and the people have decided the funders side look let's do something different so we're going to be actually coming forward with a big programme around sustainability for both beef and dairy farmers we've established something like 30 beef farmers we're going to call them signpost farms and the probably about 50 or 60 dairy farms in that so a network of somewhere around maybe 80 to 100 farms that are demonstrating not just profitability and good production but also sustainability on their farms so you know I know you didn't mean it but how are we going to get the profitability there when our beef is valued at 350 kilo that's unfortunately what the market is willing to pay I mean the demand for beef in Europe is stagnant if not going down absolutely this year it's been a really tough year for beef markets are cyclical though the demand for meat globally is quite strong at the moment because of the crisis in China and that's reverberating or whatever the word right through all the meat first I'm not saying that beef is going to go back to 450 next year but you know when prices are at their lowest you think they'll never rise again when they're high we think they'll never drop prices do change at the moment farmers are really challenged to make profit out of beef all we can do we can't set the market price if the market is going to stay at 350 yet we're in huge serious trouble not just Irish beef farmers but beef farmers all over Europe if that's where it's going to stay is a really really tough place but what we can do as opposed to show them look their times are good or times are bad and their simple messages for us they're about making best use of what you grow in your own farm your grass they're about having your animals as healthy and as productive as possible in terms of their fertility and growing your animals then as steadily and as efficiently as possible off grass so their simple messages okay we'll let Bobby in before we go to the floor of the questions why the bean scheme is not attracted to farmers the reason why the bean scheme is not attracted to farmers farmers had to reduce their stock by 5% that was the first thing that was against it so farmers weren't going to take up a scheme it was an environmental scheme but it's not attractive because one of the reasons was yeah you could use it I mean I won't have to use it in my own farm but I'll have to reduce 5% to get or I'll have to pay back the money that I get from being where we get the farm at home and the same way with loss loss wasn't attracted because you had to you have to play maybe an acre for a hen farm this thing and farmers didn't want to that were in grass were so tied into grass and so efficient in the grass they didn't want to be able to dig an acre over to this so the best scheme was ever brought into this country was the ref scheme as Pat mentioned earlier the rural environment protects the scheme and why was that the best scheme? because it cleaned up Ireland before refs was brought into this country that we were actually way behind there was no doubt about that and pollution was taking place where I couldn't soak again the water a couple of times a year was always pysed that's all gone because the refs scheme was the best scheme was over to the simple scheme and they found those refs one up to refs five over 30 years and that was the best scheme that cleaned up Ireland and to something like that scheme we need to go back an environment scheme would that'll work okay