Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) president Pat McCormack has criticised the Department of Agriculture’s Ag Climatise road map as “delusional”and “doomed to failure”.
He told the Irish Farmers Journal: “In a 30-page report, there’s not a single mention of the fundamental need to start with the real price of food at retail level.
“We have to get away from this myth that all the necessary change is going to happen from the supermarkets’ fridges backwards and that the consumers – and their artificially low prices – will remain untouched.”
The ICMSA president added that all the responsibility for transitioning to low emissions food production had been loaded on to farmers and this needs to be challenged.
He stressed that consumers will have to pay more for sustainable food instead of simply loading “useless regulations and additional paperwork” on farmers.
IFA reaction
IFA president Tim Cullinan said that farmers are committed to reducing emissions and that there has already been significant uptake of many of the measures outlined in the Ag Climatise document.
“The focus must be on supporting farmers to adopt specific mitigation measures and technologies to improve productivity and efficiency on farms. This will achieve emissions reductions,” said Cullinan.
Dairy Industry Ireland’s Conor Mulvihill warned that the measures outlined in the Ag Climatise road map will need to be backed by proper Government support.
He said the road map contained some “hugely challenging” targets for all parts of the agri food industry, which will require a cohesive “whole of Government – whole of sector”approach to be achieved.
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