Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, has spoken at the Oxford Farming Conference today (January 6, 2022) highlighting Ireland’s family farm system.
McConalogue addressed the ‘Trade and Global’ session where he linked Ireland’s family farm system into the context of increased globalisation, stating that he “really wants to protect” the system.
The minister further addressed the benefits of EU membership for farming and the Food Vision 2030 strategy.
Almost all of the 135,000 farms in Ireland are family-owned and have been for generations.
“Ireland has gone through a major agricultural revolution over the past 100 years but the family farm model has remained the bedrock of our sector,” McConalogue said.
Despite economic development, including investment, modernisation and innovation, “the Irish farming model is still almost exclusively based on the family farm,” he said.
Irish family farm system
The majority of Irish farms are part-time – in terms of required labour input – small scale family farms which rely on diverse income streams, including off-farm employment.
Just around 30% of farms, mainly dairy and tillage farms, are classified as full-time, however they still rely mainly on family workers.
Although acknowledging challenges within this particular farm structure for both farmers and the global food chain, the minister said:
“My own view is that the nature of family farming in Ireland is unambiguously positive, both for farmers and for consumers.”
McConalogue further explained that there are no “heavily stocked, intensive industrial farms” nor “investors swooping in to purchase blocks of land”.
Instead, Irish food and drink has a family story as farms are passed on across generations, which is part of what makes Irish produce “uniquely appealing for consumers all over the world,“ the minister said.
Ireland exports 90% of the food and drink produced to over 180 countries across the world.
Concluding his speech at the conference, McConalogue said Ireland will continue its global focus, feeding millions of people with safe, sustainable and traceable food as export leader using its family farm system.