The Department of Agriculture will open talks with industry on a strategy to take over from the Food Wise 2025 in the coming months.

“There will be a new Food Wise,” Edwina Love, head of the Department’s climate change and bioenergy division, told the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA) conference on Wednesday.

“The negotiations for a new agri-food strategy will commence later this year, and again sustainability and the environment will be central.”

The Department will also define the Government’s objective of an “approach to carbon neutrality in the agriculture and land-use sector, including forestry, which does not compromise capacity for sustainable food production”.

“There is a research project ongoing, projecting what carbon neutrality looks like in agriculture,” Love said.

IrBEA chief executive Sean Finan told the Irish Farmers Journal that the bioenergy sector would be interested in taking part in the drafting of a new national agri-food strategy for the first time.

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