The Food Vision 2030 dashboard has been launched by the Department of Agriculture.

The official launch took place at the 13th meeting of the Food Vision 2030 high level implementation committee (HLIC).

The committee meeting was chaired by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon.

Minister Heydon said that the dashboard is a key component of the implementation and monitoring of Food Vision 2030 and is being launched on a phased basis.

"I am pleased to officially launch phase two. Phase one focused on environmental indicators and phase two expands the dashboard to include economic and social sustainability indicators," he said.

The dashboard establishes baseline data that will be used to assess, monitor and identify our progress in achieving sustainability ambitions under Food Vision 2030, encompassing all the different pillars of sustainability - economic, environmental and social.

Dairy beef

The Dairy Calf to Beef Action Plan was also launched at the HLIC in March 2024 and the Minister and committee this week received a joint presentation from the Department, Teagasc and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation on the ongoing implementation and outcomes of the plan.

A number of key developments were reported, including the increase in beef AI serves in dairy herds and the increase in calves being genotyped.

In particular, the importance of commercial beef value (CBV) as a tool for farmers was highlighted, as well as the wider significant potential for high profit dairy calf-to-beef systems.

Reflecting this potential, Teagasc now includes dairy-beef as a category in the national farm survey.

Women in agriculture

The meeting also discussed updates on progress on the ‘Women in Agriculture Action Plan’, contributions from the Food Vision industry (food and drink) group and the publication of the ‘Environmental Sub-Group Annual Monitoring and Indicator Report’ for 2024.