There is a lot going on in global, European and Irish agriculture. It is difficult to see how the changes that have taken place within the last few years are being taken seriously at EU policy-making level.

One of the three key recent developments, in my view, has been the emergence of Brazil as a global agricultural superpower in a huge range of commodities, apart from dairying.

The second is the transformation of Russia and the former Soviet Union from the world’s major importer of grains, especially wheat, to where it is now regularly the largest exporter in the world.

The final major development on the supply side has been the extraordinary convergence that has happened between the prices received by farmers in the main agricultural trading blocks of the world, the US, the EU and Australia/New Zealand.

The Chinese market has become critical for the Irish dairy and pigmeat industries

On the demand side, the fundamental change over an even shorter timescale has been the emergence of China as the most important customer for a whole range of products, from soya and maize for animal consumption to milk powder, pork and beef for human consumption.

The Chinese market has become critical for the Irish dairy and pigmeat industries.

Irish beef has been excluded from the world’s largest market for beef imports since the discovery of a BSE case last May.

Meanwhile, Brazil has more than doubled its exports to China, sending over 760,000t up to end November.

EU farmers

But it is in the area of how these developments should influence trade discussions and policy, in dealing with its own internal food needs, that the EU seems reluctant to take an overall coherent approach.

For EU farmers, the deprivation of modern science, coupled with increasingly broad sustainability requirements, should force a reappraisal of what appropriate price and market support policies are to cope with the new trade, security of EU food supply and environmental preconditions.