The environment could be one of the real winners if Ireland opted to completely remove the link between farm production and EU direct payments, according to the the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI).
A study of the impact of completely breaking this link has found there would be a substantial reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions if Ireland opted to go this route. According to Mr Trevor Donnellan, one of the Teagasc economists attached to the FAPRI-Ireland policy analysis unit, the reduction in livestock numbers resulting from this new policy would be the main cause of this.
"Greenhouse gases have been shown to contribute to global warming, and the 1997 Kyoto protocol agreement places limits on such emissions in countries that are signatories.
"Economy-wide, Ireland is committed to an increase of no more than 13 per cent by 2010 on the 1990 level," he told a press conference in Dublin yesterday.
"Ireland is unusual among developed economies because close to a third of its greenhouse-gas emissions come from agricultural sources," said Mr Donnellan.
He said if full decoupling took place across the farming sectors, emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture would fall by 14 per cent below the estimated 1990 level by the year 2010 and by 16 per cent by 2012.
"These cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture should ease the pressure to reduce emissions in other sectors of the Irish economy, making it more feasible for Ireland to meet the targets set out in the Kyoto agreement," Mr Donnellan said.
The National Climate Change Strategy had estimated that to achieve the reduction to satisfy the Kyoto agreement in agriculture, expenditure of €130 million was envisaged and it would appear to him that money would not have to be used, said Mr Donnellan.