Irish food drive serves up tasty results
FOR once, everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. Farmers, fishermen, food processors and agri-food scientists are all working to the plan. Everyone, from the primary producer to the overseas marketing exec, is on the same page. All are focused on a mission of real clarity.
This morning, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney is unveiling the first fruits of that focus, Milestones for Success — an update on year-one progress on the Food Harvest 2020 (FH2020) targets before an audience at the MacGill Summer School in Donegal.
With other sectors of industry struggling, agri-food exports jumped 11% to €7.9 billion in 2010 and should reach €12bn by 2020. The roadmap for this drive is FH2020, a strategy document which aligns projected growth in Irish food exports with projected surges in global population.
The marketing plan links Irish farm, horticulture and fisheries products with clearly targeted markets. The stats are impressive: 91% of the 215 proposed initiatives are up and running.
Mr Coveney is understandably upbeat as he readies for the rolling out of an update welded to its track, unfazed by market shifts, rising animal feed and fuel costs, a change of Government and crippling EU/IMF/ECB bailout repayments that have severely hit funding to farm and fisheries schemes.
“What is happening in the food industry is quite impressive,” says Mr Coveney. “The level of buy-in shows that Food Harvest 2020 is a blueprint that is working for all the stakeholders. We may revise some of the targets, such as the increased production target for beef. We will continue to analyse the goals, but everybody clearly believes that these goals are realistic.
“Everyone’s attention is focused on the same goals, be that Glanbia, Kerry Group, Dawn Meats, BIM (Bord Iascaigh Mhara), the IFA, ICMSA or Bord Bia. Everybody is working to the same blueprint. Due to pressures on funding, I will continue to look to industry for support, as with the new Dairy Innovation Centre launched by the Irish Dairy Board and Teagasc, which is developing new cheese products for targeted export markets.
“In the autumn, we will be launching a new project with Glanbia to upskill dairy farmers. We will have similar projects in fisheries, in brewing with malt and barley, and a host of other R&D projects. This will involve a lot of industry collaboration, and it is all directed towards specific export markets.
“We are looking at the food output growth not just from a purely volume point of view, but also from a value-added, premium price perspective. Whether it’s Irish beef going to Germany, infant formula to China, lamb to Italy or seafood going to Paris, we will be seeking to export premium price products and to add value at home in terms of the economic benefits and employment.”
This year’s CAO applicants, many of them with no links to family farms, have already bought into this new employment logic. Teagasc turned away more than 700 applicants from its agri-food courses this year. Tackling that training need is high on the agenda, with the real jobs jackpot likely to fuel economic recovery in related fields such as R&D, food processing and eventually more overseas sales and marketing roles with food exporters.
Global population is soaring, climbing from 3 billion in the 1960s, to 6 billion in the ’70s, up to 7 billion today and heading for 8 billion by 2025, by which time the world will need about 70% more food than it is currently producing. Ireland will be well placed to feed these extra people, particularly those willing to pay for a premium, quality-assured product.
Ireland’s technical expertise at the outflow end of the food production pipe is leading to an rising number of international research partnerships. On the ground, the family farm is also adopting a more scientific approach. Those participating in dairy discussion groups rose by 3,000 to over 6,000 this year, resulting in an average economic boost of around €200 per hectare.
Research body Teagasc and cattle breeding group ICBF have launched genomic selection for dairy cattle breeding, with potential to deliver an 8:1 benefit-cost ratio. Ireland was the second country in the world to introduce this programme and currently over 45% of cow inseminations are from genomically selected sires.
The Milestones for Success document looks at projects such as Bord Bia’s Marketing Fellowship, in which 25 business graduates have helped 80 food companies progress in new overseas markets, new environmental projects and shows how Irish production goals will conform with new EU policies, notably any changes that will emerge from imminent reforms to the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
It cites an 8% increase in overall drinks exports, with whiskey up 23%, cream liqueurs up 10% and beer up 16%. It also cites Danone’s plans to treble output at its Cork plant to 100,000 tonnes annually, with 98% of that output exported to over 60 countries.
In seafood, the report cites 160 new processing jobs at 18 BIM- supported food companies, and projections for 250 jobs by 2014 in Killybegs, Co Donegal.
Of course, optimism for the seafood sector will become even stronger if the innovative development of offshore aquaculture plants delivers a highly probable lift in terms of further employment.
Due to European Commission restrictions on harbours designated as special areas of conservation, no fish farming licence has been issued in Ireland for two years. Some 520 applications have been submitted.
To overcome this hurdle, the minister is working with partners in the fishing industry to move some aquaculture activity a short distance offshore, or perhaps into the lee of some islands. He has asked the Marine Institute to suggest appropriate sites for this innovative way forward. The job-creating opportunity is considerable. At present, in clear conflict with its eco-protective planning directive, the EU imports 70% of the fish it consumes.
As Mr Coveney notes: “Given the difficulty in getting planning permission and having to do environmental impact assessment for near-shore aquaculture development, we are looking to move this activity out of the harbour.
“Practically every harbour on the island has been designated a special area of conservation. There will be three bays by the end of the year which will have the facility to accommodate aquaculture licences, but we need far more than that.
“Last year, we produced 12,000 tonnes of farmed salmon. This is a hugely valuable commodity. If we were producing three times that amount, we could sell it without difficulty because there is a great demand for it.”
Mr Coveney said it was frustrating to see aquaculture industries developing in neighbouring countries even though Ireland is arguably better equipped to capitalise on the EU’s import substitution opportunity. He said Ireland’s current output pales next to the 150,000 tonnes of farmed salmon produced by Scotland each year, plus Norway’s annual total of almost one million tonnes.
“There are great opportunities for growth in European and global food markets,” Mr Coveney says. “Everybody in Ireland’s agri-food sector is behind this drive. My job is simply to try to provide the policies and leadership for the drive, to instil a sense of enthusiasm, optimism and a self-belief that we are ideally placed to capitalise on an opportunity that already exists out there.”
Mission accomplished, minister.
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