The IFA has welcomed the formal approval of the government’s new agri-food strategy, which will succeed Food Wise 2025, stating that the plan must be backed by Government investment.

Food Vision 2030 is the Government’s new agri-food strategy that will guide the sector’s policies for the next 10 years, with the main objective of increasing the value of Irish agri-food exports to €21bn by 2030.

Following the launch o the plan, the IFA has called on the Government to support the economic sustainability of the strategy, which it said will be needed to compliment the plan’s social and environmental sustainability.

“Until the Government sets out its plans to fund it, this strategy will ring hollow,” IFA president Tim Cullinan commented.

Cullinan outlined his position that recent policy developments at EU level have had negative effects on Irish agriculture.

“The outcome to the European element of the CAP reform proposals will make this worse rather than better. What farmers want to see is what funding the Government intends to make available to back up this strategy,” he added.

Environmental scheme

The IFA outlined the necessity of maximising the level of co-financing in the CAP National Strategic Plan and using carbon tax revenue to properly fund a new agri-environmental scheme for Irish farmers.

“The Government now needs to come forward with a plan to support these sectors with maximum co-financing of the CAP and delivery on its commitment to invest €1.5bn of the Carbon Tax fund into a proper agri-environment scheme,” he stated.

Impact assessment

According to the IFA president, it is not yet known how the 10 year strategy will impact the viability of Irish family farms.

Cullinan called on Minister McConalogue to immediately carry out an impact assessment Food Vision 2030, the CAP Strategic Plan, the Climate Action Plan and the European Green Deal.

“These plans are being announced with lofty targets, but no proper assessment of how these targets will impact farm incomes, food production or global food security has been conducted,” Cullinan continued.

He added that the aforementioned reforms and proposals will be most damaging to productive farmers.

“There is a commitment in this strategy to carry out an impact assessment of the proposed measures. This must commence immediately and include a review of CAP measures, which will devastate the incomes of some of our most productive farmers."