With 1,600 staff, 45,000 direct clients and an income of €194 million, Teagasc is, by any standards, a significant organisation within the Irish agricultural firmament.

Its model of having research, advice and education within the one body is unusual, but by no means unique.

Its counterparts in the US have a similar model, based on the land grant universities in many of the individual states of the union.

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With that size and budget come real responsibilities and the expectations on the organisation range from having the basic science done to back up the national aspiration to retain the derogation for the dairy sector, while also having thought-out practices that can be put into operation to control the greenhouse gas emissions we have committed to reducing.

Side by side with these externally imposed factors, in the new three-year strategy unveiled this week, the organisation faced up to some of the new factors having such an impact on modern Irish farming.

While lip service may be paid to generational renewal, competitiveness and resilience, the ICMSA president Denis Drennan put it succinctly when he wondered how well-educated, young people could be encouraged to take up farming when they looked at the other opportunities available in an utterly changed Ireland and also saw the intense income volatility that was so disruptive to developing a normal family life.

While “innovating for impact and improving competitiveness and resilience in the agri-food sector” were the headline objectives of the new strategy, it would have been interesting to see a commitment to measure how our international competitiveness has been eroded or enhanced by the recent ongoing political and technological developments.

Mention was made of the transformation of dairy returns by the development of whey as a valuable product in its own right.

Can we achieve the same results elsewhere?

Has our competitive position deteriorated or improved vis-à-vis third countries such as Russia and Brazil and what can be done to reverse the erosion of our ability to compete?

It is good that Teagasc recognises the limitations that such a broad strategy entails and they have promised a “foresight study” to identify the technologies and “sustainable resilient production systems” that will be needed over the next 20 to 30 years.

They might usefully add what policies – with the effective demise of the WTO – should also be included in the work plan.

Teagasc is an important national resource.

They have been behind some of the most innovative and profitable developments in Irish farming over the last 50 years but the challenges for further advances remain.