Environmental policy will be to the forefront of future decisions and how we live and how we farm will have to change, Ireland South MEP Billy Kelleher has said. Kelleher was speaking at Macra na Feirme’s national agriculture conference, themed Disruption in Agriculture –Thinking Smart, which was held in Corrin Mart, Fermoy, on Friday.

While food production was prioritised in the early days of the European project and led to the development of the CAP that has now changed and there are those who now view the policy as a threat. Environmental policy will be to the forefront of future decisions, Kelleher said.

“Every policy will first and foremost be environmentally proofed from now on. There is going to be a huge shift. We have to change how we live and how we farm,” he said.

Featuring a series of panel discussions and interviews, delegates were exposed to some challenging thinking and can be best summed up by one attendee commenting that he didn’t know whether he was at a Green Party conference or an agricultural conference.

Highlighting the unexpectedness of disruptors, Dairygold CEO, Jim Woulfe said the US-EU trade war because of an Airbus v Boeing issue is affecting Dairygold with tariffs likely on products from two of its sites.

“No matter how well you’re planning, there is something coming down the line that you couldn’t have anticipated.

“You have to factor in when planning that every two years in five something irrational is going to happen in the market that will affect farm gate prices.”

The Limerick native also said the industry needs to defend itself better against dairy alternatives.

“We need to challenge the nutrient value of the dairy alternatives consistently. All the industry needs to do it. We need to be scientific and evidence-based in our approach.”