Our agri-sector deserves all the praise it gets

THE ploughing championships have become the highlight of the year in the world of agriculture, and is attracting an amazing level of attention from outside of the agricultural world too. Witness the number of urban dwellers and presidential hopefuls who made the trek to Athy this week.

The message coming out of Athy is loud and clear — agriculture is alive and well, making a massive contribution to the Irish economy and will make an even bigger contribution in the future.

From a national economic perspective, and particularly from a rural economic perspective, this is incredibly significant.

Ireland is a country bedevilled with bad news and characterised by a serious excess of uncertainty and lack of confidence.

Hence the evolving agri-food story is very reassuring and provides a strong template for what is possible.

The latest trade data from the Central statistics Office (CSO) this week confirm this positivity. In the first six months of 2011, exports of food and live animals reached €3.8 billion, representing growth of almost 17% on the first half of last year. Overall exports expanded by just 6.5% over the same period.

While exports of food and live animals accounted for just 8.1% of total exports, they are very real in the sense that they are not inflated by inter-company accounting exercises such as transfer pricing, which is a significant characteristic of the multinational sector.

In other words the real economic contribution from the agri-food sector is even more significant than the numbers suggest.

Most of the inputs are sourced locally; employment intensity is high; and accounting exercises do not artificially inflate the numbers.

At the ploughing championships, Bord Bia predicted that exports of food and drink would grow by 12% this year to reach €8.9bn.

This number is not strictly comparable to the aforementioned CSO statistics, but it does support the overall picture of a sector experiencing rapid growth and making an increased contribution to Irish economic life.

As an economist operating in Ireland, I have found the last three years extremely depressing and disheartening, but as chairman of Love Irish Food, the very opposite is the case.

I interact regularly with food companies from tiny artisan producers to big multinationals, and it is incredible to observe the passion and enthusiasm these companies have for what they do. They are characterised by innovation, hard work and ambition.

A growing trend in many of the small to medium sized companies is the effort to develop export markets. In order to achieve scale, this is vitally important as those companies who focus solely on the domestic market will be restricted in terms of growth potential.

Examples include the likes of Cashel Blue Cheese in Tipperary, Flahavan’s in Waterford, Derrycamma Rapeseed Oil in Louth, and Shellfish de la Mer in west Cork. There are many more such examples.

These companies should be treated as national treasures and should be supported by policymakers and Irish consumers to the greatest extent possible.

Another interesting feature of the CSO trade data that imports of food and live animals totalled €2.5bn in the first half of the year.

There are obviously many reasons why we might be importing food products, but it is incumbent on all of us as consumers to consider if a domestic product is available.

We owe it to our amazing food companies to support them where it really matters as much as possible. This will help support jobs and local communities. In an increasingly and frighteningly globalised world economy, this is a very important consideration.