Teagasc to invest up to €4m to search for alternative fuels

TEAGASC, the agriculture and food development authority, is to get involved in the search for alternative fuels, it confirmed yesterday.

As the hunt for alternative fuels becomes more critical Teagasc is to set invest up to €4 million of its annual budget to determine more efficient methods of rape seed oil production for use as an alternative fuel.

Other critical environmental issues are also under consideration, such as the use of forestry rotation to use up water waste and sludge.

Director of Teagasc Jim Flanagan said the environment was changing rapidly such that Teagasc felt compelled to get involved in the race to find alternative fuels and to seek new ways of dealing with various forms of waste. Mr Flanagan was speaking after the launch of the group’s annual report for 2004.

In the case of the actual accounts he said the €33m turnaround from a surplus of €24.4m in 2003 to a loss of €9.6m last year does not represent the true financial picture of the group.

“In reality Teagasc made a surplus of about1m, similar to the amount made in 2003,” he said. Under government statute it is obliged to return a surplus each year, he said.

Figures in the accounts show however a massive travelling expense and subsistence allowance of €6.4 million or close to €4,000 for each of the 1,604 people employed in the group.

Mr Flanagan defended this saying the amount of travelling required by advisers who cover the breadth of the country advising farmers stands up to comparison with other organisations. When inflation is taken into account it was down on the pervious year.

The real issue for Teagasc is the €120m annual grant allocation its gets from the state.

Roughly 45% of that is spent on research and development and another 40% goes on the provision of advice to farmers across the country with the rest allocated to training.

In total about €22.5m is spent on research and development in the food sector.

This is an area with massive potential and Mr Flanagan believes much more needs to be done.

Consumer tastes are changing rapidly and the move to functional foods and foods that help the heart and the cardiovascular system in general need to be further explored, which is something Teagasc is committed to through its research centres, he said.