A chara, – The article by Hannah Quinn Mulligan ("Ireland's dairy growth threatens farm payments, European Commission warns – 'Further improvements and more ambition required' for approval of CAP plan", News, April 22nd) highlights the key points in the European Commission's blunt letter to the Irish Government that Ireland's plan to implement the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) lacks environmental ambition.
This is not surprising.
In December, BirdWatch Ireland made the same points because it is clear that the proposed CAP actions and controls to tackle the catastrophic loss of farmland birds and other biodiversity, declining water quality, and steadily increasing agriculture greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions were not only insufficient but were also mostly ineffective.
The €9.8 billion CAP plan is critical to help farmers transition to much more sustainable farming and to be more resilient to external shocks. To do this, more of this funding must be spent on supporting farmers to restore nature, cut pollutants entering rivers, lakes and estuaries and to significantly reduce emissions.
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A radical new approach is needed as the current system simply isn’t working and we cannot continue to pretend that tweaks to “business as usual” will be enough.
Unless there is much more ambitious action, wildlife will continue to be squeezed out of the countryside and emissions will not be reduced at the necessary rate. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Acting CEO,
BirdWatch Ireland,
Kilcoole,
Co Wicklow.