Minister: 'Focus is on adding value rather than volume to produce' 

Its aim is to deliver significant benefits for the Irish agri-food sector, for Irish society and for the environment, and to demonstrate that Irish agri-food meets the highest standards of sustainability: Economic, environmental, and social.

“My key objective is to ensure that we continue to produce food and do it really, really well,” Mr McConalogue said.

“But going forward, we have to have a focus on adding value, rather than volume, to the produce.

“It is important, in terms of adding that value to our produce, to get the maximum price for the food we export and that we are not increasing our carbon footprint and contributing to the overall role of the carbon footprint in the wider economy.

“We must have those credentials, in terms of our food production, because that is what will add value to the food we are exporting and get us onto the best consumer shelves.”

Mr McConalogue said it was on that basis that the national herd would need to be kept “stable” and not increase, so that the focus remained on the food that Irish farmers were producing and on finding ways to add value to it.

“The way we do that is to reduce the carbon footprint of the food we produce, because that is what consumers want,” Mr McConalogue said.

“This, of course, is important, too, in the overall contribution to climate-change objectives.”

Meanwhile, The EU Commission’s Farm to Fork strategy, as well as the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, includes key policy developments for sustainable agriculture.

The aim of the Farm to Fork Strategy is to move towards food systems that stimulate dietary changes beneficial for health, decreasing the impacts on the environment and climate, while leaving no one behind.

The strategy puts most of the burden of the transition on farmers, fishers, and aquaculture producers, and has a pivotal role to play in making food systems sustainable.

Its intention is to create incentives through different means — ie, CAP — to help them change their practices and methods to those that are more sustainable.

And Ireland is at the cutting edge.

“At the end of July, I published the Food Vision 2030 — a strategy that was chaired by Tom Arnold — which sets out a platform now as to how we can develop and add value to farming and food sectors,” Mr McConalogue said.

“It takes a food-systems approach to how that food is produced by looking at the economics, as well as the social, environmental, and sustainable aspects.

“How we produce food and the connection to human health and environmental health is also part of all of that — the full picture, really, of the system in which the food is being produced.”

Mr McConalogue said the move puts Ireland “in a very strong place internationally”, as it is the first country to lay out a food-systems approach that has been led by the stakeholders themselves.

“It is a strategy that can be followed through on, and delivered, over the next number of years and central to it is to ensure that what we do adds to farmers’ and primary producers’ incomes.

“I believe that a food-systems approach will deliver on that.”

On the possibility of rising food costs for consumers, the minister said that his focus is on improving farm incomes and that the best way to do that is to add value to the produce.

“Projections in relation to food price are still unclear, but we export 90% of what we produce; we have a very strong green and environmentally-friendly image and this is something that we need to build on, and deepen, over the coming years,” Mr McConalogue said.

“Reducing the carbon footprint of the food we produce is the best way to add value and to ensure that we get the best price available internationally.

“While we have no control over what will happen with food prices internationally, we do have control over the value of the food we produce and that is what needs to be our focus now, so that we can ensure that farmers are rewarded well for what they do,” Mr McConalogue said.

Last Friday, the minister signed a statutory instrument that will give effect in Irish law to additional price-reporting obligations, which will improve food-market-price transparency in the EU.

“This is a key step in moving forward to establish a food ombudsman, or regulator office, by ensuring transparency in the food-supply chain,” Mr McConalogue said.

“A dedicated, independent office will be established over the next few months; it is an important step and what I ultimately want to ensure is that we bring parity to the food-supply chain and a better understanding of the margins.

“I want to ensure that those who are putting such a massive effort into producing that food at farm level are able to see what is happening in the food-supply chain as the food makes its way to the consumers’ table.

“And that they will have confidence that they are getting a fair price for their produce.”

Meanwhile, on the CAP consultation front, Mr McConalogue said that “significant information” had been gathered through the process and that work on it would begin this week.

“Significant information has been provided to the process over the last five weeks and I wanted to make sure that as much information as possible was provided to farmers and stakeholders, so they could make informed considerations and feed back into that process,” Mr McConalogue said.

“It is important that the schemes work well and are practical for farmers.

“The key focus is to ensure that the structure of CAP works well for farmers and that it delivers in terms of food production, and in terms of Ireland’s environmental and climate-change objectives.

“We will have flexibility with CAP, but we also must work within the overall CAP objectives.”

The next step will be to take on board the submissions that have come in from farmers, farming organisations, and the wider public, and assess and evaluate all of that in the context of the proposed schemes.

There will be further consultation with farmers in October/November to finalise the matter before Ireland submits its CAP proposal to the EU at the end of this year.

The schemes will be subsequently developed and the necessary infrastructure put in place next year. The new CAP will then kick off from January 2023.

“I want farm incomes to become the key focus of CAP and I also want to ensure that it is structured in a way that works well for everyone,” the minister said

“Overall, there has been a lot of positive feedback in relation to some of the measures that are being proposed.

“One area that got a lot of attention during the consultation period was the suckler carbon-efficiency scheme and on whether there is a need to put restrictions on farmers that participate in the scheme and keep additional cows, over and above what is allowed in the scheme.

“The feedback on that is certainly something that I will be considering very closely.

“I think that, in relation to the environmental schemes, there has been very constructive engagement and I will also be considering all of that as well.”

Last month, the minister visited Dairygold’s Castlefarm dairy-processing complex in Mitchelstown, as part of the consultation process with the fisheries, farmers, and food producers.

The site includes a wastewater treatment plant with anaerobic digestion (45,000 m3) and biological nutrient removal; a water-recovery and distribution facility that allows Dairygold to recover 3m litres of water per day for reuse in processing and utilities; and a whey demineralisation room.

CEO Jim Woulfe highlighted the co-op’s commitment to becoming sustainability leaders in the dairy industry and he also outlined how Dairygold is supporting its milk suppliers to deliver a 40% reduction in farm-based carbon intensity by 2030, through a number of sustainability initiatives.

As well as becoming carbon neutral by 2050, Dairygold is taking a holistic approach to improving the environment by adopting and supporting water-quality and biodiversity improvements at farm level.