Report a wake up call for agriculture sector

THE Rural Ireland 2025 report is a wake up call, for something more than lip service is needed to sustain a viable agricultural sector to save rural areas over the next 20 years.

The report’s suggestion that Ireland’s full-time farmers will have dwindled to 10,000 would have sent shock waves through Government if it was released 25 years ago, when Ireland was highly dependent economically on the export of agricultural produce for foreign earnings.

Today, an industrialised economy has a lesser dependence on farm output, but it is still a huge net benefit to the country.