Food Wise must learn from Food Harvest

We go into detail on the Food Wise 2025 report this week – a strategic plan for Irish agriculture for the next 10 years.

The headline figure is a forecast 85% increase in the value of food exports, reaching €19bn by 2025. It is an ambitious target and one that will require a clear commitment from Government if it is to be delivered. Unfortunately, the track record of Government in delivering on strategic objectives has not been good – as is clearly evident in distribution of payments under the current CAP.

At the launch of the Food Wise 2025 strategy, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney made reference to the fact that Food Harvest 2020 targets had already been delivered. In doing so, he ignored two important factors. First, the growth in output value largely reflects an increase in global commodity prices. Second, there has been no increase in farm incomes aligned to the increase in export values.

Minister Coveney’s speech would have required significant editing had exchange rates not swung heavily in our favour in recent months.

We must learn from Food Harvest 2020 and the implications of not putting productivity and farm profit at the core of any strategy. In many ways, Food Harvest 2020 was simply a case of being in the right place at the right time, with Irish export values largely influenced by factors outside of our control.

Neither productivity nor farm profit received any attention at last week’s launch. It is clear that the politics of climate change influenced the commentary and curtailed any details on productivity gain. Although sustainability takes centre stage, there remains a lack of recognition that environmental sustainability can only be delivered in the presence of economic sustainability. In its current form, the Food Wise strategy is a useful first step but we now need to put a lot more meat on the bones.