Former Teagasc director, professor Gerry Boyle, will chair a new Food Vision Dairy Group that Minister McConalogue is establishing.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is setting up the group in line with a priority action in the Food Vision 2030 strategy.
The group will include representatives from the farming organisations, the dairy industry, the DAFM and “relevant” agencies.
Food Vision Dairy Group
According to the minister, its first task will be to “produce a detailed plan by Q2 2022 to manage the sustainable environmental footprint of the dairy sector”.
Minister McConalogue commented:
“A key priority for the group is ensuring that we continue to provide a platform of sustainability for our farmers and our sector.”
“This is economic, environmental and societal sustainability. I am delighted that someone of Professor Boyle’s stature will lead this really important body of work.”
Meeting with dairy sector
Minister McConalogue today (January 28th, 2022) met with stakeholders from the dairy sector.
They discussed the “challenging” targets for the agriculture and land-use sector under the Climate Action Plan.
Minister McConalogue said he assured stakeholders that he was confident that “working together we can stabilise and then reduce emissions from the dairy sector”.
He said this would:
- Position Ireland as a world leader in sustainable food systems;
- Help meet our climate targets;
- Ensure the market delivers a reward for our quality, sustainably produced food, particularly for farmers.
“We want to ensure that we continue to have a sector that is vibrant and attractive to new entrants.”
He said we think about how we ensure that there is space for generational renewal and new entrants.
Furthermore, he said we must also consider how those with marginal enterprises can improve viability, and space to encourage innovation and value addition.
He said this course of action – developing and implementing this plan to stabilise and then reducing emissions associated with the dairy sector – will give “sufficient” headroom for the measures in the Climate Action Plan, and the supports for farmers in the draft CAP Strategic Plan, to “work effectively”.
He confirmed that the first meeting of the Food Vision Dairy Group would take place in early February.
