The value of Irish food and drink exports could easily increase by 50 per cent over the next 10 years if the sector plans its expansion in a sensible and sustainable way, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has said.
Announcing plans for a new strategy which will guide the development of the agri-food sector up to 2025, Mr Coveney said he believed the sector could be exporting €15 billion worth of food and drink by that date – an increase of €5 billion on last year’s exports.
“I don’t see any reason why that’s not achievable,” he said. “I think that would be conservative. We could go well beyond that.”
Mr Coveney said the agri-food sector was already by far the biggest and most important sector in the Irish economy, employing 170,000 people and accounting for more than 10 per cent of merchandise exports. “But more importantly than all of that, it has a reach into every parish in the country,” he said.
Sustainability “We want to build on that ambition to do more, to get better, to increase Ireland’s reputation
as the most impressive food producer on the planet, on measurements like sustainability, quality [and] safety.”
He said he wanted the 10-year strategy to be presented to the Government by next July. Former Glanbia managing director John Moloney has been appointed to chair the group drawing up the strategy. He said the group would be assessing what was needed to maximise potential.
The 34-person committee is a who’s who of the agri-food sector and includes food and drink producers, farmers, researchers, heads of state agencies and environmentalists.
Agriculture accounts for more than 40 per cent of Ireland’s non-Emissions Traded Sector but Mr Coveney said he was not going to compromise Ireland’s capacity to produce food in an effort to meet emissions targets.
Constrain countries
He said he believed the final EU agreement on emissions would not constrain countries like Ireland that had the capacity to produce more food in a sustainable way. “That would make no sense, to simply transfer that food production to other parts of the world that produce food at much higher emissions intensity than Ireland,” he said.
“There’s no other country even talking about measuring the carbon footprint of its beef herd, and on 46,000 beef farms we are measuring, through carbon calculators, the emissions coming from those herds.”
He said it was possible to increase food production while maintaining the carbon footprint, or even reducing it, by tweaking farming practices. As Ireland produces enough food for almost 10 times its population, its agri-food emissions are much higher than other countries, but Mr Coveney said the European Commission recognised Ireland's unique position.
Interested parties and individuals have been asked to make submissions to the strategy group before January 9th (agriculture.gov.ie/2025strategy). Tenders are also sought for an environmental analysis of the strategy.
