Government urged to help Irish farms feed Europe’s rising population

THE Government has been urged to fast-track its Food Harvest 2020 proposals to take advantage of the increase in Europe’s population to over a half a billion.

Labour’s food and agriculture spokesman Sean Sherlock made the call after Eurostat announced this week that the EU’s population, as of January 1, 2010, was logged at 501.1 million.

This compared with 499.7 million a year earlier, with the highest birth rates recorded in Ireland, Britain and France, and the lowest in Germany and Austria.