The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has welcomed the comments of Prof. Gerry Boyle at the first meeting of the Food Vision Dairy Group today (Monday, February 7, 2022).
Last month, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue announced plans to set up sectoral committees in order to implement Food Vision 2030 policy and reduce emissions from agriculture.
The group, consisting of key stakeholders from the dairy sector and chaired by former Teagasc director, Prof. Gerry Boyle, met for the first time today.
Commenting afterwards, ICMSA president Pat McCormack said that he was encouraged by Prof. Boyle’s emphasis on the voluntary nature of any proposals that might result from the process.
Cooperation with milk suppliers
The ICMSA president noted that Boyle had stressed that “imposition” of measures would not work and that solutions could and should be found from “within the farm gate”.
McCormack said that it is vital that someone with Prof. Boyle’s technical expertise and mastery of the overview, was allowed to formulate the policy and not be hindered or second-guessed by those with “crude ideological responses to what were incredibly complex and multi-faceted issues”.
“ICMSA starts from a position that rejects state restrictions on our world-leading sustainable dairy sector,” McCormack stated.
“But we are prepared to give Prof. Boyle the room to explore the options where those are based on incorporating the momentum that is already evident around science, genetics and change of practice.
“Prof. Boyle thinks that much, if not most, of the problem can be addressed under those headings and ICMSA agrees with him. What we can’t have is uninformed and agri-illiterate groups jumping in now and ‘demanding’ that the science step aside in favour of their crude and self-defeating obsession with a simplistic head-count.
“The government has appointed an expert to chair this incredibly important process, so let’s leave him get on with his work,” McCormack said.