AS THE Government prepares for next month’s budget, Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Minister Brendan Smith warned at the Agricultural Science Association conference in Galway that it won’t be possible to do all of the things it might otherwise like to do.

THE organisation representing graduates in the agriculture and food industry warned last night about the danger of targeting science and technology for budget cuts as a solution to the current difficulties in the public finances.

FOOD inflation — a blip or a trend — is one of the questions being discussed at this year’s Agricultural Science Association national conference, which takes place in the Radisson Hotel Galway on September 12.

Sheep production in France is forecast to decline in 2007, for the third year in succession, with output for the year predicted at 123,000 tonnes.