Irish beef for China: We need a sustainable farming plan
Last month, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed celebrated the latest in a long line of derogations from the EU Nitrates Directive. This allows at least 7,000 farmers to have higher stocking rates than those stipulated by the directive. Regulations to protect the environment and encourage good animal husbandry are only for other Europeans, it seems. Unlike their Dutch peers, our farmers will not be told to reduce herd numbers if they have a negative impact on water resources.
No matter how the farm lobby argues, the derogation will exacerbate the destruction of water resources, a ransacking recorded with ever-deepening despair in one Environmental Protection Agency report after another. This evasion is a primary driver of the fodder crisis. Strangely, and in an unusual recourse to socialist values, the farm lobby argues that the taxpayer must resolve this difficulty.
In an irony that revealed the dangerous disconnect among ministers on the unity of purpose needed in a climate-change world, on the very day Mr Creed celebrated that derogation, Environment Minister Denis Naughten announced a programme to tackle fly tipping.
Condemning illegal dumping as “environmental and economic treason”, he made no comment on the easily-anticipated impact of the derogation, even though it will have a far, far greater impact than fly tipping. It is not known if he was consulted on the decision, announced with fanfare by Mr Creed, yesterday, that the Chinese market has been opened to Irish beef. It is not known, either, if the Government gave any consideration to the environmental impact that serving a vast market like China might have.
Dairy farmers have already been warned that the increase in milk production is “unsustainable”. EC agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan, hardly a tree-hugger from central casting, warned in January that there is a real risk of oversupply. His concerns were economic, but over-supply has huge environmental consequences. It seems reasonable to anticipate that the China beef deal might lead to over-supply, too. We know that we will not meet EU emissions targets, and that we face multimillion-euro fines for this irresponsibility. We know that our 140,000 farmers — less than 3% of the population — contribute about 33% of Irish emissions and also make a significant contribution to transport emissions, which account for another 33%. We know that any fines will be paid by all taxpayers, in a kind of double subsidy, as the tax take from farming falls well below the €1.1bn paid out last year under the EU’s Basic Payment Scheme, a programme that costs the EU nearly €60bn a year. Those fines will, like it or not, limit our capacity to provide essential social services.
Farmers must be able to make the kind of living that sustains a great agrarian culture, but, in today’s world, the bigger picture is ever more relevant. It is time to have an honest conversation about how we can protect our farmers without sacrificing our environment. Turning swathes of our country into feedlots for beef, or monocultures for milk production, to satisfy the Chinese market, hardly seems wise or sustainable. We must find a better way, no matter how loudly the beef barons cheer the China deal.
