Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has said that the steps taken by the agri-food sector to stabilise and reduce emissions should continue to allow new entrants into the dairy sector, as well as allowing for established herds to expand.

These allowances would afford farmers the capacity to increase economic viability, he told Dáil Éireann on Thursday.

The Minister stated that one of the first tasks he delegated to the new dairy stakeholders’ sustainability group was “to consider how we can efficiently manage the footprint of the dairy sector and ensure it stabilises and then see its footprint reduced".

“In doing so, it is going to be about adding value to that, but, also, in the years ahead, we can ensure that new entrants can come into dairying and that those who need to become larger as well have the capacity to do that and become economically viable,” he said.

Adding value

The Minister added that these activities must be carefully monitored, as higher emissions would place an additional burden on other elements of the sector.

“But we do have to manage things in a way that ensures that emissions do not go up, because if emissions go up, it challenges the sector overall and diminishes the value of what we are producing,” he said.

The Minister also claimed that if emissions were to decrease, the value of agri-food produce would increase, along with farm profitability.