Research should not be carried out for its own sake but for practical application, the Minister for Agriculture said at the official opening of the new Teagasc rural economy research centre in Athenry, Co Galway, yesterday.
Describing the transfer of the centre from the former Teagasc headquarters in Sandymount, Dublin, as one of the successes of decentralisation, Mary Coughlan said the centre now employed 40 permanent staff with a further 20 PhD students and 15 post-doctoral research posts.
"My vision of agriculture in the future is based on innovation and that will come from here," Ms Coughlan said. "The research I want to see should have practical application and we need the applied sciences to help the agriculture sector cope."
The Government was committed to research and she said €27 million arising from the sale of Teagasc assets would be retained and reinvested in the Teagasc research vision programme and the Athenry centre.
Half of the 600-acre farm at Athenry has already been sold, half of it to the IDA. Sixty acres has been taken for road-building and 55 more acres near the town has been given to the county council for affordable housing.
She hoped the research generated at the centre would challenge and educate her and those who devised agriculture policies.
There had been a huge increase in the amount of money invested in research and development under the National Development Plan and this would be focused on a number of headings including livestock, food for health, forestry, diversification, animal diseases and welfare.
During her visit to the centre, where 170 people are employed, Ms Coughlan visited the national sheep research centre at the farm where she said the decrease in production followed decoupling in 2005. This year, she said, supplies were at 82 per cent of last year's levels but prices were up 5 per cent on average.
She said research at this centre would drive the industry forward to meet the needs of the sheep sector.
Ms Coughlan ruled out the possibility of sheep farmers being paid a subsidy of €35 per ewe, as had been wrongly suggested by one farm organisation.
"There will be some support but the rumours of this kind are not on because this could not happen as we are in a decoupled system, but we can look at other support systems to make sheep farming more profitable."