EU Biodiversity strategy 2030

Thanks for the link, crazy stuff. I'm actually raging this morning after watching that. NUIG going out to brussels basically saying that if we don't rewet our reclaimed land we loose our single farm payment. The fact that all these organizations only heard about in a couple of months ago. The craic about Bord Na Mona, even if they rewetted every bit of their land it still only accounts for roughly 20%, so the other 80% will have to come from farmers, which is a violation of property rights by all accounts.

I honestly cannot believe that the EU are pushing for this and have signed the Mercurocour deal with countries that are apart of the BRICS nations. Did they not learn their lesson from depending on cheap gas from Russia as the basis for energy for their economy.

Thanks HQ, listened to it this morning during milking. Truely shocking, every farmer needs to listen to it. There's a mountain of information in the 2 hours we'll worth the listen

On the political side if things, my take is that

1) on these issues all farmer associations need to unite and pull together on these current issues. We're F'ed if we don't.

2) Ryan seems to be trying to bulldoze these laws through before there is a chance for farmer bodies to get informed and object. This is not democracy

3) there needs to be a levelling up of funding between farm bodies and eNGOs. Farm bodies versus eNGOs €5BIll

4) Ryan's modus operandi seems to be to get as many laws changed as possible as quickly as possible and set it up that the eNGos can police them via the courts when the GP are ousted . Let that sink in.

Anyone know when the next dail meeting is?

Anyone see the new LULUCF regulation the EU are just after passing. Basically they want land use land use change and forestry sector to be net zero as in soak uo what it emitting. The funny thing is the member states can sell excess credits on to other countries. I have a written letter as on last week from Charlie McConalougue that goes into detail about forestry and carbon credits. He sates in the letter that the state does not own or have any right to the carbon and that they just report the figures to the EU as part of these protocols it signed up too. If this is the case than how the f$$$ck can the sell our lands credits to other members states.

This is actually total bullshit. It they are selling our lands sequestered CO2 then we will never be able to use it for offsetting against our own farms as it would be double counted. And secondly I hardly think that Microsoft and the big tech emitters will be slapped with the same crap as they have been offsetting planting forestry with greenbelt for years now.

I'm actually sick of this place I really am, has McConalougue just told me pure lies in his letter or does knowone actually have a clue what these arseholes in the EU are doing.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/11/11/fit-for-55-provisional-agreement-sets-ambitious-carbon-removal-targets-in-the-land-use-land-use-change-and-forestry-sector/

Yeah looks like by the time it goes through all the process there will be some concessions in the overall regulation, but as a whole there will be a lot of rewetting forced upon anyone with reclaimed land as this is primarily their main objective.

Basically the way I see it now, If you opted for the Acres scheme in order to get the maximized payments for the low input grassland you basically cannot spray, use much fertilizer and nearly promote wild flower (weeds). If people try to maximize their payments on reclaimed poorish lowlying grounds by the time 5 years comes around that land will be as good as re wetted. Then there will be a new scheme that will offer money to fully rewet the land and in most cases with the poor prices for dry stock and sheep people may have no other option. The ACRES scheme is basically an enrolment into this if you ask me.

If farmers were going to come out good out of this and actually be extremely well rewarded in terms of money, then it may be a good option but this will definitely not be the case. The new proposal on carbon farming from the EU looks like its all wishy washy bullshit with absolutely sweet f'all in terms of financial gain for farmers to pursue this option.

My main gripe with this is the financial aspect, Carbon €/kg will be upward of €500 within 4 years and with the push to net 0 it has the potential to be an extremely valuable commodity down the line. Farmers should be paid on the quantity of CO2 they are storing and capturing and they should be paid real time market price as if Carbon was a commodity. the problem with this is that nobody knows whos owns the right to the CO2, yet multinational companies can use them for offsetting to achieve net 0 and farmers cant.

I am still waiting for my parliamentary question on whether a farm can offset emissions if it was set up as a limited company. I will keep ye know if I get an answer which I suspect I wont. Currently LULUCF sequestered carbon, solar panel, wind farm or bio energy credits cannot be offset against a farm, ELi Lilly in Cork built a huge solar farm down there for the main function of offsetting carbon emissions, if any farmer here done that the Energy sector would get not the agricultural sector, but if they had a limited company why would they not be allowed to do exactly what Eli Lilly done and offset it against themselves.