New food, drink and horticulture export figures published by Bord Bia today (Wednesday, January 11) should be a “sobering lesson” for politicians who want to “lay waste” to the farming sector, one farm body president has warned.

Bord Bia’s “Export Performance and Prospects Report 2022” highlighted that Ireland’s food, drink and horticulture exports jumped by 22% last year to hit a record high of €16.7 billion.

Dermot Kelleher, president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) said the significant increase in food and drink exports – which increased by €3 billion since 2021- was a “sobering lesson for the anti-livestock farming agenda”.

“The 22% increase to a record €16.7 billion, which when combined with non-edible agri-exports is about €18.7 billion, is first and foremost a tribute to the hard work of farm families in delivering for the Irish economy,” Kelleher said.

“In 2022, farmers were confronted with huge increases in cost and a never-ending diatribe of negativity in the media.

“But farmers do what they always do in the face of adversity – they show up for work seven mornings a week.

“It is critical to understand that, unlike foreign direct investment (FDI), the €18.7 billion of agri-food exports, delivers real money spread relatively equally across every county in Ireland and this money is retained in the Irish economy,” he added.

Bord Bia figures

The president of the ICSA said one of the most important aspects of the latest Bord Bia report was how it illustrated that the increase in export values had been through “better product price”.

Kelleher added: “This is a key lesson – farmers are only producing what consumers across Europe and further afield want to buy.

“It also demonstrates that food security is indeed an issue as other countries are encountering declining production of all types of food.”

He also drew attention to sectoral differences highlighted in the report, he said that dairy exports had increased 33%, without an increase in volume but in contrast “the beef and sheep sectors worked a lot harder to get lower increases”.

“Beef exports were up 18% in value on the back of a 9% increase in volume and sheep exports were up 17% on the back of a 10% increase in volume.

“The overall value of meat exports at €4 billion is really important to rural Ireland but it should be noted that the meat sector is also a contributor to the €3 billion of exports in the prepared consumer foods sector,” the president of the ICSA said.

He believes that the Bord Bia report and overall buoyant export figures show that the meat sectors “need to do better to match the excellent performance of the dairy sector in terms of price delivered to farmers”.

“Beef and sheep farmers have really been hit by input costs increases which dairy farmers can carry better. This needs to be looked at again, in terms of policy and financial support,” Kelleher urged.