Seamus Kirk
Ceist:1. Deputy Seamus Kirk asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the advantage to milk producers of the milk quality assurance scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55818/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 13 December 2012
Ceisteanna (1)
Freagraí ó Béal (3 píosaí cainte)
The development of a dairy sustainability and quality programme comes against the background of ambitious plans under the Food Harvest 2020 report to increase dairy production by 50% in the period to 2020, and the need to find a home on international markets for this additional production.
We are taking a series of steps on a number of levels to prepare for this. State agencies, the Department and companies are working together to restore new markets in areas such as Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Africa. We are also developing a common brand, Origin Green, across the food industry generally. This is about differentiating Irish food from food produced in competitor countries. Essentially, it is a sustainability claim backed up by data that are internationally accredited in respect of how food is produced in Ireland. Part of building that brand requires a sustainability and quality programme for primary producers of dairy projects. This is why, in last year's budget, I announced that I wanted to see the rolling out of a quality or sustainability programme among the 18,000 dairy farmers in the country to ensure we could stand over our collective dairy industry and say we produce milk to a certain standard. This will not be some kind of inspection-based witch-hunt of farmers; it will be quite the opposite. We will roll out the programme in the same way that the carbon-footprinting programme has been rolled out for the beef sector. By the end of this year, 32,000 beef farms across Ireland will be carbon-footprinted. When we sell a steak, not only will we be able to put on the label the traceability claim indicating the farmyard from where it came, we will also be able to tell buyers the carbon footprint of the animal that produced it.
We want to provide similar sustainability claims for dairy production in Ireland. Bord Bia is working with all the interested parties and farming organisations to ensure we get buy in from farmers and that we insulate the Irish dairy industry from price volatility in the future on the basis of quality and the data we collect which can prove sustainability.
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply. In his preamble to the points he made about the proposed scheme, he said the background to this is Food Harvest 2020 and the projected increase in diary production in Ireland. I understand Teagasc has prepared expansion plans for the dairy industry and the plans indicate it will be expensive to expand. This industry, by its nature, is capital intensive and there is a low margin return on the money invested in it. When the inevitable price volatility that will arise for the dairy sector is injected into the mix, any proposal that will increase costs for the farmer, or a combination of farmers in partnership arrangements, is dangerous territory to approach.
Is the model of the proposed scheme a template taken from somewhere else? Has it been modelled on a template in some other jurisdiction across the Community? For instance, will the authorities north of the Border have a parallel scheme running alongside our proposed scheme? The core question is the additional cost that will be imposed on farmers who will be stretched financially to meet the expansion objectives set out in Food Harvest 2020.
The best way farmers can insulate themselves from the price volatility that will happen in the future is to ensure Irish product get differentiated from other product. Let us not forget that more than 85% of all the milk we produce is exported in various forms, be it infant formula, skimmed and semi-skimmed milk, cheese, yoghurts and all the other products in which milk is an ingredient. If we are to be able to demand a higher price for our product in the future, which we will need to do, and move away from being a commodity producer of volume to being a quality producer of volume, targeting the top 10% price area in the new markets we are exploring, we have to be able to stand over the way in which our food is produced. The sustainability and quality programme will not cost farmers a great deal of money, in fact it will help them to run their businesses more efficiently. If a farmer is using less water, has more feed conversion efficiency and more efficient grazing management, his business will be more efficient and sustainable. The combination of those two factors will improve the standard of dairy farming in Ireland, which will be beneficial for everybody.
In the context of the capital investment farmers have to make, we will make more than €10 million available to dairy farmers next year in the form of the TAM scheme, which is half of the overall scheme as such, to help them with the costs of expansion, growth and upgrading their equipment.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House
Environmental sustainability is an increasingly important issue in the marketplace for many multinational dairy and food operators, many of which now have sustainability as a core part of their corporate strategies. During my trade missions to China and the US in 2012 it was clear that the sustainability and quality messages have a strong resonance both with potential customers for Irish food products and with potential investors in the Irish agri food sector.
Developing a unique selling point for Irish food products is a critically important element of the national strategy for the development of the sector. It is particularly relevant in the dairy sector where we will need to maximise market returns for significantly increased production in competitive markets worldwide. Ireland is well placed to develop a national brand image based on a reputation for high quality dairy products, and on its mild maritime climate, plentiful supplies of water, grass based production and an already positive green image.
In that context, earlier this year, Bord Bia launched its “Origin Green” programme, which establishes a framework within which Irish food companies can have their green credentials independently measured. This will be a critically important element in the development of the Irish food sector in the coming years and its promotion on international markets. The key is to build independently verifiable metrics, which can be used in the marketplace, around Ireland’s already positive green image.
It is equally important to develop an independently accredited sustainability and quality programme at farm level for the dairy sector as part of that overall strategy to enable the sector point to verifiable attributes in maintaining and expanding its market share. There is also a strong correlation between the measures needed to improve environmental sustainability and to improve hygiene and other quality practices on farm, and those needed to reduce the costs of production at farm level and improve profitability.
In that context, and following extensive consultations with stakeholders in the first half of 2012, I announced in June that Bord Bia would begin detailed work on the development of a national sustainability and quality programme for the dairy sector to be used as a key element in marketing and promotional efforts on international markets. The programme will provide an independently accredited framework for operating best practice quality and sustainability principles on Irish dairy farms, and an objective and uniform mechanism for measuring compliance with these principles. It will also provide a vehicle for encouraging continuous improvement in production standards on Irish farms, underpin the marketing of Irish dairy products internationally and provide additional assurance for potential investors in Ireland.
Stakeholders are currently engaged in detailed technical discussions on the development of the programme, under the aegis of a technical advisory group convened by Bord Bia to progress the issue, and I hope it can be finalised in the near future.