The countdown is underway to the cabinet reshuffle and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, is not taking any bets on whether that will impact him or not.
On a farm visit to Co. Laois this week Minister McConalogue was formally invited to attend the AGM of Laois Irish Farmers Association (IFA) in January.
“If Micheal Martin reappoints me, I’ll be there,” he told Laois IFA chair, John Fitzpatrick.
There is already speculation that some prominent cabinet porfolios could be up for negotiation between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and agriculture has not been ruled out of that mix.
Minister McConalogue told Agriland that he “would be delighted” to retain his current role.
“Obviously it is a matter for the Taoiseach and three party leaders to decide in terms of all the different departments and ministers,” he said.
“I have worked hard in the role it has been a challenging time, with lots of challenges to deal with in relation to Brexit and also getting a good strong balanced Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
“There is making sure it’s implemented well and our sustainability challenge as well so I would love to stay in it but we’ll see,” he added.
Food Vision 2030
Farming organisations have commended his “engagement” with them in the role and his “willingness to listen” but recently there has been friction in relation to the various Food Vision groups.
The minister described the current position as “challenging”.
“It requires everybody considering the difficulties and the challenges we have to meet to try and find a good way forward. That’s why we put together the beef and lamb group and the dairy group, we wanted to bring all of the key voices in to consider those challenges and try to plot a way forward.”
He said while the dairy vision group had delivered its report the beef and lamb group was yet to deliver their report. In the meantime some members of the groups are threatening to walk away from the process.
“What I would hope and expect is that all stakeholders participate and contribute and try and reach as much consensus as possible,” the minister said.
He believes it is important that members of the food vision groups ” stay there to the end in relation to completing the reports”, because he said it is important “to get a full assessment of the challenges and plot a way forward”.
“It’s best that we have everyone actually participating – hopefully now the beef and land group will conclude in the next week or so,” Minister McConalogue added.
He said the next priority for him after this is to get the “climate action plan agreed by early mid-December”.
According to Minister McConalogue his priority is to “back farmers in relation to continuing to produce to food”.
“We’re looking at how farmers can contribute in relation to energy production in relation to ecosystems, the biodiversity challenge and then balance all of those things and do a good job in all of those.
“But we also have to ensure very strong income streams for farmers that make them very sustainable economically as well,” he added.