On pages 38-39 this week, Siobhán Walsh makes a case for making blackgrass a noxious weed. The Minister for Agriculture can announce a noxious weed at any time, which would make you wonder why this hasn’t been done already.

Blackgrass is a highly invasive grass weed which risks making tillage land unworkable for crop production as there is often no herbicide available to control it due to resistance, apart from glyphosate – and even that is coming under pressure.

The tillage area has already decreased dramatically and we must remember that it is the low greenhouse gas emissions sector. Andy Doyle has described blackgrass as the TB of the tillage sector. Surely then there should be plans put in place to prevent the further spread of this weed immediately and prevent its further importation. If an animal has TB, all neighbouring farms are notified. Should we have something similar for blackgrass?

This week's cartoon

\ Jim Cogan

ACRES of PR but little detail for farmers

There has been much fanfare this week around the naming of the new agri-environmental scheme – ACRES. In this week's edition, Barry Murphy and Rachel Donovan detail what is known so far. But in reality, beyond the broad objectives of the scheme and the size of the overall budget, farmers have received little real detail.

The strategy of launching such schemes in the absence of any real detail appears more aligned to a publicity agenda in Government rather than a desire to give farmers a clear direction as to how payments will be delivered. Is the PR agenda timed to cushion the blow of unpalatable sectoral emission reduction targets?

Working with the British government on emissions

Speaking in Westminster on Monday, UK environment secretary George Eustice admitted the international system used for measuring greenhouse gases in each country is flawed. “If all you are doing is reducing industries here, only to off-shore pollution to another country, then you are not actually helping the planet,” he said.

There is no country more exposed to this flaw than Ireland given it is carrying the environmental burden for the food that it exports plus the emissions from the energy sources it imports. While Brexit has undoubtedly created friction this is a policy position that Dublin and Westminster should be working together on.