Rachel Martin: How secure is Ireland’s food supply?

With input costs spiralling, farmers and producers face difficult choices and Ireland’s food supply suddenly seems less secure, writes Farming Editor Rachel Martin

Picture Denis Minihane.

How secure is Ireland’s food supply? Government policy can be a funny thing, and after successive months of heated discussions over scaling back agricultural output and potential reductions to the national herd, we are now having very real conversations about food security, not only in Ireland but overseas.

In case you’ve missed the urgency, in the space of the past week, a National Fodder and Food Security Task Force have been established and Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue has called on farmers to grow whatever crops they can to ensure they will have enough feed to get their stock through the winter.

It, of course, comes on the back of the war in Ukraine. Two agricultural powerhouses at opposite ends of Europe, yet inextricably linked through modern supply chains.

For three years straight, Ukraine has been the biggest supplier of maize into Ireland, shipping 284,908 tonnes here in 2021.

Many farmers in Ukraine, the world’s sixth-largest exporter of soya, have been unable to plant this season’s crops amid military
bombardment.

Sanctions against Russia will also have an impact. Russian fertiliser accounted for 22% of Ireland’s total fertiliser imports in 2020, the last year for which figures are available.

Meanwhile, Russian gas accounts for more than a third of European gas imports, meaning that even for fertiliser produced outside of the country, it is likely an input from Russia will have been used somewhere in the production chain.

We grow plenty for a small island — enough to feed 45m. Indeed, in November, Ireland ranked number one in the Global Food Security Index, ahead of Austria and the UK.

That’s great if you really love your meat and dairy, but the modern consumer demands much more than butter, meat, and spuds. And even then, the production of these often relies on bought-in inputs.

We are not likely to starve in Ireland but the cost of producing food is rising rapidly, meaning that food prices will increase substantially.

Millers have been among the first to sound the alarm, warning bread prices will increase substantially over the next few weeks.

The National Association of British and Irish Flour Millers said that since September the price of wheat, which is mainly imported from the UK, Germany, and Canada, has increased by about 70%.

Farm conditions

Our climate is very well suited to some kinds of production — and less towards others. For example, any cucumbers, tomatoes, or peppers grown commercially in Ireland need to be grown under glass, using costly gas to heat the growing houses.

Faced with spiralling input costs, some growers have already been having difficult conversations around the kitchen table, deciding whether to go ahead with this year’s planting. Several have already delayed planting for this year, meaning shoppers will have to wait longer for certain varieties of Irish-grown fruit and veg.

If you like the idea of growing your own, anyone who has already given it a try will tell you it’s a lot harder and more costly than it looks.

Just as I was beginning to make plans for what I would do with my healthy-looking doorstep potatoes last year, the whole crop was cruelly snatched by a bad bout of blight. While Eamon Ryan isn’t wrong about the value of growing your own herbs in window boxes, actually feeding your family is another matter entirely.

Other inputs

Gas is not the only input to rise in cost. Farmers will be affected in almost every way.

Rising diesel prices will mean that tractors will cost more to fuel, and that also means on-farm contractors will need to be paid more to cover their costs.

As a result, farmers may decide to cut back where they can — especially smallholders who often farm for enjoyment, perhaps only selling a few bales.

Farmers say they are paying around three times as much for chemical fertiliser as last year.

The rises are so extreme that some suppliers have this week withdrawn their price lists, no longer giving forward quotes for fertiliser.

As a result, there are reports that some are planning to cut their fertiliser use by as much as half. If this happens on any wide scale, it will have an impact on the volume of output from farms.

It is estimated that around half the global population is fed thanks to increases in agricultural production due to chemical fertiliser.

The fear is that if less grass is grown this spring and summer, less silage will be made for the winter.

Some will have little choice in the matter — for example, you can’t just turn milk production off like a tap.

The cows are already producing milk and are about to hit peak production in Ireland over the next few weeks. They will need to be fed.

To grow enough fodder, the soil needs to be fed with nutrients so these farmers will likely have no choice but to pay higher prices for their fertiliser because they cannot risk not having enough feed for their stock later in the year.

This week’s Irish Examiner Farming revealed that Mr McConalogue plans to put together a “multi-million” euro package to help farmers prepare, by the end of the month.

Details of the scheme are still sparse but the minister has said it will include supports to address increased input costs, as well as measures to encourage farmers to include red clover in swards to reduce their dependence on chemical nitrogen, and payments to incentivise the planting of tillage crops and fodder crops.

The Department of Agriculture will also establish a database of organic fertiliser — traditionally seen as a waste product, but becoming more valuable by the day as chemical fertiliser prices continue upwards.

Used correctly, a tanker’s worth of muck can be worth more than €100 in terms of its nutrient value.

Clover has become something of a buzzword lately, and it is certainly true that its inclusion in swards can reduce fertiliser requirements, but it also takes around two years for clover to establish and start fixing nitrogen to a level where it can replace fertiliser.

The current situation may be the impetus for farmers to take longer-term steps but it is not terribly helpful for the season ahead.

It is true that many are over-reliant on fertiliser, as one agricultural consultant from Co Cavan put it, for many it has become a “crutch” mitigating some of the risk of a bad growing season.

However, that does not mean it doesn’t have a place — as plants use up nutrients from the soil, these need to be replaced to continue productive growing.

It is so important that getting soil fertility right is considered one of the main building blocks of efficient and profitable modern farming.

Soil is routinely sampled and analysed for its nutrient profile on many farms now as part of various schemes, but a growing number are also now getting slurry tested as well, or repeating testing after slurry has been applied, to monitor nutrient uptake.

Precision farming has come to the fore in recent years. This approach to nutrient application means that farmers get a better return on the fertiliser they purchase.

Some new agtech tools on the market use LiDAR to scan a field and apply fertiliser to the exact parts most likely to benefit, but these gadgets are expensive and therefore, not yet in widespread use.

The summer peak growing season has yet to begin.

A lot will depend on the weather — a good summer season with a balance of sunshine and rain at the right times could be a saving grace.

However, a summer drought — as has become a frequent occurrence, particularly in the East, could be devastating.

It may seem premature to be discussing shortages in the winter before spring has fully sprung, but farming is a long-term game with decisions made over the next few weeks likely to have consequences into the next few years.

Food waste

Zooming in on the opposite end of the chain, another way to improve our food security, both individually and on a national level, is to reduce the amount we waste.

Globally, more than a quarter of food produced is wasted, and in Ireland, where we often take the security of our food supply for granted, every year, it is estimated 303,000 tonnes of food is wasted in the commercial sector.

Of this, 100,000 tonnes is wasted in the retail and distribution process, with more than double that — a staggering 203,000 tonnes — wasted at restaurants and in food service.

Food waste has a significant cost too for households.

The Government’s Food Waste Report, published last year, showed the average Irish household throws out 150kg of food waste each year, at a cost of around €700.

When food is wasted, all the resources used in bringing it to our tables, such as the energy to produce it and materials used to package it, are wasted too.

Reducing food waste will not only have huge benefits for our pockets, but also the environment.

In some respects, this crisis will be a wake-up call not just across the power and fuel sector but also for the food sector.

It forces us to confront the challenge of making food production more sustainable in the long run, but there is a painful and stressful year ahead for farmers. And, if farmers feel it, consumers will too.