Farmers may hold the key to solving the country's energy problem, the Progressive Democrats conference in Limerick was told today.
Minister of State at the Department of Finance Tom Parlon told party colleagues the potential for farmers to grow energy crops in the Republic was significant if the government created the right framework.
"There is a clear recognition that farmers must modify and diversify if agriculture is to be a viable career option for the future," the Laois Offaly TD argued. "However, as yet, there is not clear road map laid out to do so."
"I believe firmly that if the Irish Government creates the right market framework, that energy crops such as rape seed, elephant grass and willow offer farmers a new source of income and a solution to the challenges of energy security and meeting our Kyoto obligations."
Mr Parlon, a former Irish Farmers Association president, said there would have to be a change in agricultural practices and thinking, with producers focussing on the energy market as well as the food market.
He announced his plan to bring to the cabinet table in the coming weeks a road map for the adoption of bio-fuels.
This, he said, would also address the situation of former beet farmers, who have been affected by the decline of the sugar industry.
"If the 35,000 hectares of land traditionally used for sugar beet were switched to rape oil roduction, it would meet 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent of our diesel requirements," he said.
"Expanding the area under rape to 70,000 hectares, which equates to 17.5 per cent of the total tillage area, would permit us to achieve the EU Directive target for the introduction of bio-fuels in the transport sector by 2010."