Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 July 2016
30. Deputy Pat Deering asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the progress of Food Wise 2025; the progress to date on the actions detailed in the strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21312/16]
View answerFood Wise 2025, the new ten-year strategy for the agrifood sector published last July, replaced Food Harvest 2020. It identifies the opportunities and challenges facing the sector and provides an enabling strategy that will allow the sector to grow and prosper. Food Wise 2025 includes more than 400 specific recommendations spread across the cross-cutting themes of sustainability, innovation, human capital, market development and competitiveness, as well as specific sectoral recommendations.
The implementation process for any strategy is vital for its success. I chair the Food Wise high-level implementation committee, HLIC, with high-level representatives from all relevant Departments and State agencies. The committee reviews progress on detailed actions on a quarterly basis in order to identify and solve problems quickly. Stakeholders regularly present to the committee meetings on their priorities for particular sectors or themes and, by the end of this year, the HLIC will have reviewed in detail progress on the five cross-cutting themes and the 12 individual sectors outlined in Food Wise 2025. As such, it is very much a live and continuously updated process. For example, the HLIC convened following the UK vote to leave the EU to agree on a co-ordinated approach for the agrifood sector.
I today launched a first year progress report on Food Wise 2025, entitled "Steps to Success 2016".
Of the 414 actions in the Food Wise implementation plan, 330 were due to commence in 2015 or 2016. Of these 330 actions, 28% have been achieved or substantial action has been undertaken, and a further 67% have commenced and are progressing well.
Food Wise 2025 stressed the need for my Department, other Departments and State agencies to work collaboratively, and I am pleased to say this is occurring. Some of these collaborations are reported in Steps to Success 2016.
I would like to emphasise the following successes from year one of this ten-year strategy. Bord Bia’s The Thinking House, which opened in June, will be a world-class consumer insight and innovation centre. The meat technology centre, hosted in the Teagasc food research centre, Ashtown, will be an internationally leading centre of excellence for meat processing research and innovation. I am pleased to announce that in 2017 we will launch a major initiative focusing on improving grassland management use and profitability. The Department will establish a committee with representatives from the agencies and relevant stakeholders to plan a year-long programme of events. It will celebrate and build on Ireland’s comparative advantage in sustainable grass-feed production.
A detailed report on the status of Food Wise 2025 actions is available on my Department’s website together with the progress report for the first year.
This time last year, the Minister launched Food Wise 2025, a very ambitious programme. There was a target to increase milk production by another 20% on top of the existing target of 50% envisaged as a result of Food Harvest 2020. Considering that the past year has been a very difficult one for dairy producers, how does the Minister envisage the targets being achieved over the coming years?
There is a target to increase the value of agrifood exports by 85%, to €19 billion, over the next ten years. This is very ambitious. Does the Minister believe the target can be achieved in view of the challenges facing the beef and dairy sectors? Additional challenges have emerged in recent weeks with Brexit. There will be serious sectoral challenges and uncertainty over the value of sterling. How does the Minister envisage the targets being achieved? Were they too ambitious initially?
I do not believe the targets were too ambitious. They were compiled by all the stakeholders together. Food Wise 2025 is, in fact, the industry’s document. It involves the collaboration of the industry both inside and outside the farm gate. Therefore, the plans are not overly ambitious. In the context of difficulties we are facing owing to Brexit and fluctuating commodity prices, as alluded to by the Deputy, I do not believe it is a time to lose our nerve.
One response to the challenges that exist is to diversify the range of markets into which we sell. On the dairy side, for example, China has in a very short space of time become our second largest market destination after the United Kingdom. My Department is continually attempting to seek new market opportunities in order that we can lower the risk if any particular market runs into difficulty. We have discussed this previously on Question Time. We face specific difficulties associated with currency fluctuations in the UK market but, at the same time, the euro has weakened relative to the dollar. Therefore, in dollar-denominated markets, we have opportunities arising.
It is a time in which to hold our nerve regarding our ambitions, which are significant and can be achieved over a ten-year horizon while acknowledging the present difficulties. The UK beef market is the best market to be in. I will be leading an effort to diversify our product in this regard. We will be going to China and south-east Asia in September. In the past two weeks, the US market for beef for grinding opened up. This is a significant step in the right direction. Some 80% of beef consumed in the United States is beef ground for mincemeat or burgers. We were already in the US market for prime cuts but this is a significant breakthrough. It is now up to the industry. Now that the market has opened, it faces a significant challenge to avail itself of market opportunities presented in that context.
What is important is that Food Wise 2025 is the industry’s document. The Department is obviously a facilitator in terms of the industry’s ambition. In the post-quota era, we have harnessed it collectively to achieve very significant targets in terms of export earnings and job creation. The jobs are, by and large, in rural areas. It is important that we continue to have faith in the industry to achieve the targets.
I will allow Deputy Pat Deering one minute but there will not be time for a response.
With regard to the targets the Minister mentioned, our dairy sector has an advantage because of grass-based production. We should be emphasising and concentrating on that advantage further. What are we doing to ensure our competitive advantage is maintained?
There is no doubt job creation in the industry is very significant. Over the recent difficult years, agriculture was key to rebuilding this economy. We have to diversify. Diversification is important in the industry and we need to create more jobs. A good news story in recent years has been the re-emergence of distilleries and breweries. We need to concentrate on them. I recently attended the opening of a new brewery in my area. Some €25 million was invested, and the brewery will employ 60 people in a rural area. This will be very beneficial, but we need to maintain a competitive advantage and to be concentrating on these issues.
