Ireland’s mushroom and vegetable sectors will be ‘wiped out’ by September unless peat harvesting is resumed in Ireland, according to horticultural peat producers.
The horticulture industry, which employs 17,600 people, includes mushroom, vegetable and ornamental businesses that rely on milled peat to grow.
John Neenan of Growing Media, Ireland, which represents the majority of horticulture peat producers in Ireland said: “The law is impossible. The horticultural industry is facing enforced closure by September this year, it will be wiped out. Transport costs have gone up 300 per cent and the cost of peat is 50 per cent higher.”
Stakeholders have addressed the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, to outline “extreme concern” over the economic viability of the sector due to the legal position on peat production in Ireland and Bórd na Mona’s recent exit.
Agricultural committee members are pressing the Department of Local Government and Heritage for ‘immediate solutions’ before this year’s peat harvesting season commences in April.
“Our legal advisors say that it is possible to exempt peat from planning and that such new legislation could be beefed up with other environmental obligations that would allow us to harvest peat responsibly,” added Mr Neenan.
This week shipments of peat are being imported from Scotland and representatives of rural-based vegetable growing businesses said they will be forced to rely on peat alternatives from the Baltic States, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the UK.
LSL News.