The advent of Brexit has forced a brutal re-appraisal of where Irish produce should stand on a global scale.

Over the last few weeks, it has really borne in on me how the agri sector and the food industry based on it, is one of the few really indigenous Irish sectors with a presence on global markets.

Last week, I listened to Paul Wilson of Monaghan Mushrooms at a Brexit seminar in Dublin City University on how the company has now become the biggest mushroom composter in the world and by far, the largest supplier of mushrooms to the UK market.

Brexit potentially poses huge challenges but it has prepared meticulously for it by buying and organising facilities and parallel logistical capacity in Britain.

Monaghan Mushrooms’ pre-eminence is based on science developed in Kinsealy by Teagasc’s forerunner, the Agricultural Institute.

Then at the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association’s seminar in Kilkenny, I heard Tánaiste, Simon Coveney, totally at home with his Brexit brief as Minister for Foreign Affairs but also at home with the fact that he was addressing a sector that is the third largest producer of thoroughbred foals in the world – after just the US and Australia – an industry that is as big as the industries of Britain and France combined.

As in the case of the beef industry, the potential damage that might be done to one of our world-class industries is enormous

As a major exporter and international breeding centre, the Irish industry depends on free movement but the long-term arrangements that allow such easy and safe transport between Ireland – north and south – Britain and France are in danger of collapse.

As in the case of the beef industry, the potential damage that might be done to one of our world-class industries is enormous.

The next few weeks of intensive negotiations will tell a lot.

Finally, I was delighted to be asked by Ornua, formerly the Irish Dairy Board, to the launch of its new Kerrygold global campaign.

The message to be beamed to global audiences was simple – green grass, family involvement, heritage and relentless focus on quality and naturalness. In all cases, mushrooms, horses and milk, the message is the same – a product we are proud to stand behind and whose methods of production are utterly transparent.

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