A blueprint for the Irish agri-food sector through to 2025 will be in place by next July “at the latest” Minister Simon Coveney has pledged. John Moloney has been appointed as head of a 34-strong strategy committee, with a report to be delivered by next summer.

The committee draws representatives from a broad range of farmers, processors, food companies and state agencies. “There are no passengers on this committee,” said the Minister.

The new strategy will build on and succeed Food Harvest 2020 (FH2020). The Minister paid tribute to his predecessor Brendan Smith, who established FH2020 initially, and described it as “a shining light through a difficult and dark period”.

He highlighted the sea change in attitude to the agri-food sector in Ireland since the FH2020 launch, saying the sector now has the most admired companies and business leaders.

The Minister predicted Ireland would have “the fastest growing dairy sector on the planet over the next five to 10 years”. He said that no one could be better qualified than John Moloney for the task in hand, and revealed that no one who had been asked to serve had turned him down.

Moloney said that the group would be “charting the future with a global perspective”.

He added: “We will take stock of FH2020 and see what level of re-calibration is required.”

Tom Moran, secretary general of the Department of Agriculture, said that FH2020 had provided a coherent vision, and that there had been huge buy-in. It provided a context for Ireland’s policies when negotiating CAP reform.

A consultation period regarding the 2025 agri-food strategy has opened, and will continue until 9 January 2015. A related questionnaire is available at www.agriculture.gov.ie/2025strategy.

Minister Coveney also announced that he was inviting tenders for the environmental analysis of the new agri-food strategy.

Citing the positive attitude that characterises the sector, he pointed to the willingness of farmers and processors to accept “the need to measure and audit the sustainability of everything we do – we have made a virtue out of that”.

No compromise

He was firm on the issue of climate change targets. “I have made it clear that I am not going to compromise our capacity to produce food to meet emissions targets,” he said.

He believes that Ireland can achieve growth in farm output, while holding emissions at current levels through the adoption of best practice. “Ireland is probably the world leader in measuring and auditing emissions,” he said, with 46,000 beef farms now involved.

Coveney said it was premature to set value or output targets yet, but he expected that Ireland would double the value of exports from 2010 to 2025, meaning at least €15bn of exports, and probably well beyond that.