Ireland is starting off in a good place in order to try and meet global food sustainability challenges, Michael Maloney, director at Bord Bia, has said.

Speaking at today’s MSD event, Sustainable Irish Food Production in Global Markets, he outlined a number of natural advantages Ireland has as the world faces into trying to produce 70% more food sustainably by 2025.

Outlining the figures in terms of projected growth in global populations, he said that the population is to rise to 11 billion people by the end of the century.

With more people expected to move to urban centres from rural areas, Maloney said that there will be a change in disposable income as more and more people join the middle classes in the next 20 years or so.

“We see there’s been big growth in the numbers joining the middle class in Asia, in India and China, and what that means really is that they’ll have more disposable income to spend on food and buying proteins.”

Demand

He also said that there will be increasing demand in developing countries for proteins and fish products.

“The demand is going to be there, the challenge is can we meet that demand and can we meet it from having less resources?

“By 2050 we need to produce 70% more food. We need to do that with less land, less water and also looking at reducing greenhouse gases (GHG).

“How is that going to be done? Well it’s going to have to be done in a sustainable way.

“What sustainability means to me is that we do it in a way that ensures that the next generations have the resources to provide the food for their families into the future.”

Ireland’s advantages

Maloney said that Ireland has a lot of advantages when it comes to sustainability and while it has some disadvantages, we’re starting off in a good place with our grass-based production.

“If we look at water availability, there are a lot of countries around the world that suffer from water stress – shortage of water.

“This is going to be a big constraining factor in production as time moves on. The focus on water is going to become key when you look at the percentage of fresh water that’s being used by agriculture.

“We’re in a good place in relation to that.”

Air quality

The Bord Bia director also said that Ireland is well placed when it comes to air quality.

“We’ve all seen the photographs of people in China and places like that with masks on their faces. We don’t have that in Ireland, not generally.

“We have very good air in this country.”

Another advantage Ireland has when it comes to meeting food sustainability targets is our greenhouse gas emissions.

Maloney said that we’ve the joint lowest GHG emissions for dairy, with Austria, and we’re in fifth place for lowest GHG emissions for beef production.

“We’re a lot of natural advantages starting off in the sustainable production project.”

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