Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 December 2021
12. Deputy Neale Richmond asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to expand the number of trading destinations of Irish agrifood exports in view of Brexit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60845/21]
View answerAs we know, the vast majority or a large proportion of Irish agrifood products have gone and will continue to go to Great Britain. However, Brexit has changed the trading situation utterly. What efforts are the Minister of State and his Department making to diversify the trading destinations of Irish agrifood produce?
I thank the Deputy for his question and ongoing interest in this area. While the immediate threat of Brexit may have passed, we must continue to prepare for the full reality of our new trading relationship with our nearest neighbour. The promotion of Ireland's high-quality, safe, nutritious and sustainably produced food is a core objective of my Department and the relevant Government agencies, especially Bord Bia. This has been a particular interest of mine since my appointment as Minister of State with responsibility for new market development. Along with developing new markets for Irish produce, we must protect our strong position as a trusted nation in existing markets.
Encouragingly, despite an extremely challenging 2020 and 2021 as a result of Brexit and Covid-19 issues, Irish agrifood export performance has remained very resilient, with exports for 2020 totalling €14.3 billion and exports in 2021 to date, including those to the United Kingdom, continuing to grow.
My Department, in close collaboration with industry, has invested significant resources, both financial and political, in developing new markets for Irish food in a wide range of places, including continental Europe, the United States, China, Japan and the Middle East. The Government's commitment to this strategy is clearly demonstrated by the additional funding that has been provided to Bord Bia in recent annual budgets. This funding has supported Bord Bia's extensive marketing and promotional activities, in addition to individual companies that are establishing and expanding their presence on international markets.
Another component of our strategy to develop and diversify markets is ministerial trade missions. Despite the challenges presented by Covid-19, the Minister and I have led several virtual trade missions and other key customer engagements in 2021. These have focused on Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, China, Singapore and West Africa, in addition to our traditional markets in the European Union and the United States. In 2022, provided the public health situation will allow us to implement our plans, we will have an extensive schedule of in-person trade missions in several key target growth markets for Irish food exports.
I thank the Aire Stáit. A couple of really interesting points have been raised but, considering the difficulty that Covid-19 presented to trade missions, we are only scratching at the surface of the potential of a wide range of new markets. I would like to ask about co-ordination and co-operation between Bord Bia and the Department of Foreign Affairs. I am referring to the notion of the Ireland House model, whereby officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the traditional agriculture counsellor, and officials from Bord Bia could work with Tourism Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Irish embassies to realise all the opportunities, particularly in the agrifood export sector.
I would like to tease out the opportunities associated with existing and potential trade deals involving Irish agrifood exporters. In this regard, we are talking about the roll-over, the deal with Mexico and the opportunities relating to desiccated milk. We are also talking about the opportunities presented by the huge trade deal with Japan, as the Minister of State mentioned, and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada.
The Deputy is dead right. There are significant synergies. There is a need for interdepartmental co-operation and co-operation with our State agencies. I am aware of several Ireland House-type arrangements, particularly in the EU, whereby the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia are all in under the one area. In recent years in my Department, there has been a really significant investment in agriculture attachés, who are based in embassies in our key markets. When travelling or participating in virtual trade missions, we see the important work they do on the ground to help to make progress on the local intricacies in every area for Irish companies that are seeking to enter or expand in a market. We are trying to navigate the local political circumstances also.
The Deputy referred to the many opportunities we have, including in Mexico and Japan. These are all places where we have agricultural attachés working with our diplomatic teams in the embassies and Bord Bia, which has great staff all around the world.
That is really interesting. It is really drilling down into the importance of the entire brand of Ireland. Ireland is known as a good food-producing country, a sustainable food-producing country with very high standards. We saw the great opportunities that existed in respect of getting people into markets such as China and the United States over the years. It is a matter of considering co-ordination in the coming years, identifying export markets that are environmentally and economically sustainable and ascertaining how they relate to our overall political objective of maximising the potential of EU trade deals and, crucially, the potential of the EU Internal Market. The latter tends to be undermentioned. Despite Ireland’s having been a member of the EU for nearly five decades, it is not getting the most out of the EU Internal Market. We must remember this. Going into 2022, we might double our efforts in this regard.
I commend Deputy Richmond for asking this question. On his final point, I agree we did not utilise the EU market outside Britain sufficiently. There is scope for growth in the EU market. This must be based on a premiumisation model whereby we compete based on the quality and sustainability of our food rather than on price or the quantity exported. We cannot win a race to the bottom but we can win a race to having top-quality, sustainable food produced a relatively short distance from where we can have the biggest impact. Crucially, we need to ensure that, when we find and open new markets, the people who benefit will be our primary producers. It is all for naught if it just results in our processors and the big retailers securing more profit, which has happened in the past.
Both Deputies are right. Already, about one third of our food and drink exports go to the EU. There is potential for further growth. I witnessed that at first hand when I attended the Anuga Food Fair in Cologne in October. The European team of Bord Bia was there engaging with many companies across the spectrum.
When Deputy Carthy talked about the premiumisation of the market, he was absolutely right. It is the Government policy, as outlined in Food Vision 2030, which refers not only to environmental sustainability but also to economic sustainability for our primary producers. We intend to grow the value of our exports from €14 billion to €21 billion during the lifetime of this plan, not necessarily based on quantity but on quality, premium markets and the objective of getting a higher return for our produce for our primary producers and agrifood businesses. This is interlinked with our approach to the climate and improving sustainability even further. We are aware that we produce some of the best and most sustainable food in the world but we have to do so even better because, in the premium markets, that will be the higher level of ambition that will be expected.
