Last week at the EU heads of government meeting, the final conclusions had just one sentence on agriculture. The leaders said they want a strong, competitive industrial base, thriving agriculture and to complete negotiations on international trade agreements, including TTIP (with the US), by 2015.

It seems that few of the leaders had any consciousness of agriculture, as the conclusions have several paragraphs devoted to European energy security, a particularly relevant subject given Germany’s abandonment of nuclear power and the EU’s dependence on gas from Russia.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that there was no mention of the need for a secure and sustainable food policy for Europe.

The message I take from the summary of the discussions is that the Irish Government and Irish agriculture will want to be on its guard that agriculture is not sacrificed in the rush to get a full US/EU trade agreement in the dying days of this Commission.

The relative complacency existing in world agriculture and food production shone through the latest joint forecasts from the Paris-based OECD (the main developed economies) and the FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organisations of the United Nations).

They have just issued their best estimates as to how the next 10 years are likely to pan out. Whether we agree with them or not, their analysis is always worth reading and thinking about. Europe is increasingly part of a world market. In some key commodities, such as cereals, milk and beef, price differences between major blocks can be attributed to transport charges and some rules around quality factors, such as the use of GM material and growth promoters.

However, global food production is growing at a constant 1.5% per annum, while total population is growing at just 0.5% annually. The difference is that, as more people in developing countries grow richer, the demand for meat and dairy products is increasing faster. Prices for these products are expected to increase more rapidly over the next decade than for cereals and coarse grains.

But the OECD work pinpoints another area of which farmers have been uneasily aware. Energy-intensive farming is coming under pressure from continuing increases in the price of oil, tilting the scales towards grass-based dairy and beef production.

Increasingly, it seems that cereal prices will only rise significantly when there is a real weather event like we saw in the US in 2012 but that is hardly a base on which to plan an industry.

The key difficulty for farmers is that high oil prices push up the costs of field work, fertilizer and machinery. While biofuels and renewables will continue to expand, the point is made that the development will depend on Government action, rather than commercial realities. You only have to compare the spread of anaerobic digesters in Britain and Northern Ireland to the South to realise the truth of this assertion.

So, the end conclusion? Farming and food production will continue. There is no bonanza on the horizon, except at someone else’s expense in an exceptional year, and output directly from grass seems to promise a constant margin because of the continuing increase in energy costs.