While there was a lot of focus on the supposed election oriented stroke pulled by Fine Gael on its coalition partners by leaking a wish to lower taxes on the middle class, it has become clear that hopping anti-agriculture balls full of piety and superior moral standing will be a continuing feature of the run-up to the next election.
The appropriate response, based on the recent outburst from Green Party and socialist TDs, should be to recognise that this is local constituency election fodder and any response is not just unlikely to change a point of view, it is grist to the tribal mill of ‘wokeness’.
Don’t feed the binary/tribal nonsense.
Future for agriculture
I have written before about following the signal rather than the noise regarding the policy evolution of future prospects for the Irish agri-food sector.
This is a concept that is becoming ever more important given the relentless mischaracterisation and dismissing of the Irish agri-food sector, and the emerging ‘politics’ of jumping on anti-agri bandwagons.
The true signal in this instance I would suggest, is framed by Food Vision 2030 and its recent reflections/agreements and the legislation covering sectoral emissions targets from the Climate Action Plan.
Even more fundamentally though, all of this is enhanced and made real by the growing global demand for Irish grass-based dairy and meat products from a huge range of global countries, as outlined in the chart below from Bord Bia Export Performance and Prospects.
This core reality that demand for Irish agricultural output is hugely underpinned by international demand for grass-based meat and dairy, in essence, trumps the noise of naysayers and the morally superior.
If the reverse were the case, and agriculture was eulogised at home, but had no international customers, local positives would be meaningless.
Nevertheless the noise is… mainly just noise… and in essence, it represents in equal measures, ignorance not just of agriculture and fundamental economics, but of climate and decarbonisation challenges too.
Election mode
Above all else, it is tribal and binary, appealing to a certain electoral constituency – for us to win, they must lose.
Indeed the very tone of the mischaracterisation noise seems pitched in a way that would make implementation of decarbonisation measures extraordinarily difficult to implement, if not impossible.
That is what noise does; this pantomiming of ‘he said versus she said’ will not take one kg of carbon out of the Irish economy, but it plays out nicely on radio programmes between 4:30 and 6:30 in the evening to the poor misfortunates stuck on the M50 ‘car park’.
Reality beyond election fever
Meanwhile back in the non-idealised world of volatile prices and incomes, farmers and food processors have to deal with the realities and complexities of food production and marketing to a 21st century customer base.
Food producers coped admirably with Covid-19 in 2020 through 2022 and managed the huge increase in input costs caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine since March 2022, and as an aside while using 20% less fertiliser.
Irish agriculture in 2023 is implementing carbon-reducing farming methods and Irish food processors are investing millions in decarbonisation of the broad agri sector while also focusing on reducing environmental impacts.
This is at the same time as managing volatile global and local pricing issues.
So, expecting praise from serial detractors is a bit like a dog expecting carriage compensation from its fleas – a futile hope.
Negative attitude towards agriculture
However, the continuing negativity of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to progress made by the sector is concerning.
The EPA report on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projection of two weeks ago does not lead with the good news that agricultural emissions could and should fall by 20% by 2030, if the range of methane-reducing measures continueS to be implemented.
Nor does the EPA report on water quality lead with the progress made in certain catchment areas and highlight how this reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus levels occurred.
Instead, it delivers a ‘glass very much half empty’ report that states there has been no significant improvement in the water quality of rivers and lakes, followed by a ‘small print’ statement that says, while there has been progress made, rates are still too high.
This seems to me to be reflective of a judgement by the EPA that any positive recognition of progress made might lead to a falling off in commitment.
This is very much an adult to child approach to regulation, or a more clinical view that negative reporting is more likely to get a headline.
Back to the real world, in the knowledge that other than in the energy sector, Irish agriculture is the only sector that is implementing anything like a plan.
Farmers and food processors are also focusing on the ongoing challenges of managing price volatility and substitution effects across product lines both from cheaper food sources and from highly processed ‘free from’ alternative products.
A packed programme indeed of multi-faceted aspects and agendas, but fundamentally based on real world issues and actions.