Macra, CEJA (the EU umbrella organisation for young farmers) and Devenish hosted their One Health - From Soil to Society conference online on Friday.

The challenge of providing adequate and healthy nutrition for a global population of 10bn was a recurring theme, addressed by the contributors.

Speaking on behalf of DG Sante, which supports the EU Commissioner for health and food safety, Henk Westhoek explained the ambitions of the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy for agriculture and how it will contribute to the EU green deal, which has the ambition of making the EU carbon neutral by 2050.

Farm to Fork

He had a holistic focus on what the strategy, which has the ambition of delivering healthy diet alongside sustainable and profitable farming with high levels of animal welfare, will achieve.

When challenged by Irish Farmers Journal agribusiness editor Lorcan Allen, who chaired the conference, about recent USDA analysis on the impact of Farm to Fork, he said that the USDA report failed to consider the impact of precision agriculture and smart technology.

He suggested that these would reduce the use of added nutrients without compromising production.

Westhoek also highlighted the importance of cutting food waste, while more sustainable diets in the EU would reduce the demand for food there and that reduction in highly processed foods, such as sugar drinks and snacks, in favour of more whole foods in the diet would also require less resources for processing.

He said the EU didn’t want to green-wash agriculture in Farm to Fork, but its objectives could be achieved by combining smart production with changes in consumption.

Nutrition

Professor Alice Stanton of Royal College of Surgeons and Devenish spoke of the challenge presented by proper nutrition in a world where two billion people were overweight or obese and a similar number didn’t have sufficient nutrition.

One of the big issues of the 21st century is child stunting in countries that eat little meat.

She also spoke of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie and pointed out that processed fruit and vegetables were the worst performers, while sweets were best.

The challenge she said was to optimise nutrition density with minimum GHG emissions.

On the role of red meat in the diet, she was of the view the only problem would be excess consumption and that the typical national guidelines of three portions per week were ideal for children, otherwise iron supplements would be required.

She questioned the ambition of setting a target of an almost exclusive plant-based diet because consumers don’t consume the quantities of fruit and vegetables currently recommended never mind setting a higher target.

Importance of measurement

The need for better measurement of farming impact on the climate and moving from gross to net emissions was demonstrated through the Lighthouse Farm at Dowth lands, in presentations given by Dr John Gilliland and Dr Cornelia Grace of Devenish.

The farm at Dowth was able, through the use of more accurate measurement and new technology including measurement of hedgerows' contribution to carbon sequestration through LiDAR, to demonstrate the potential for net-zero on beef farms.

Bringing the issue back to Irish farming, Macra president Thomas Duffy told the conference that the aim of increasing climate resilience and action must be pragmatic and not offshore biodiversity to lose or limit our farms’ ability to adapt.