THE MASSIVE potential for growth in agri-food sector was not fully appreciated outside rural Ireland, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney told the MacGill Summer School.
What he called the “sleeping giant” of the Irish economy was now wide awake and “charging ahead” in terms of expansion and job creation.
“I deliberately refer to my ministry whenever I can as the Ministry for Food primarily,” Mr Coveney said.
The potential in the sector was not widely appreciated, “particularly those living within the Pale who often dictate newspaper headlines and indeed television and radio coverage”.
The food industry was the most important in the country “in terms of the employment that it provides and the indigenous opportunity for growth and expansion of Irish companies”.
The sector extended beyond farming and fishing: “It is big, big business.” The Minister added: “In the midst of the deepest recession that any of us can remember, the agri-food sector is actually charging ahead.”
Citing Patrick MacGill's poem, Before the Dawn, about waiting for the dawn prior to the Battle of Loos in 1915, Mr Coveney said: "Our dawn has come, in agriculture: we have in many ways been a sleeping giant within the Irish economy for the last 20 years."
World demand for food would continue to grow indefinitely: “Back in 1960 there were three billion people on this planet, by 1990 that figure had doubled and we are now just under seven billion people.”
The issue of food security and ensuring that Europe could feed itself as well as helping feed other parts of the world “now must be a major feature of the Common Agriculture Policy”.
Chief economist of the Irish Farmers’ Association, Rowena Dwyer said the relatively small size of farms, lack of land mobility and unfavourable age structure must be addressed to achieve the growth potential of agriculture.
“With over 25 per cent of our farmers aged over 65, we need to encourage farmers to transfer their farm within their lifetime, and not financially penalise the person taking over,” she said.
