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While much attention is rightly directed at a cost-of-living crisis driven by food and energy price hikes, it rarely gets mentioned that the primary food producer needs those higher prices to stay in business.
It is also fair to question the marketing messages targeted at consumers and perhaps more needs to be done to remind people where their priorities should lie. At present in major UK retailers you can buy a 500g pack of lean mince for £2.89, which can form the basis for a nutritious meal for a family of four over a two-day period. You won’t buy much in the way of cakes, buns or other high sugar content foods for the same amount.
With huge marketing budgets targeted at highly processed foods, farmers now get little recognition for supplying highly nutritious milk, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, potatoes, bread etc.
At the same time, we see local media starting out news reports linked to the COP27 event in Egypt with the same old lines about how agriculture is NI’s largest emitter of greenhouse gas. Sometimes it feels like we should be embarrassed to be livestock farmers.
Yet, as Professor David Rooney from QUB pointed out at an event on Tuesday, the farming industry can provide a key solution in our transition to net zero GHG emissions by 2050. Our temperate climate means we can grow grass and crops, and our livestock can provide the slurry, to help decarbonise the gas grid in NI via a network of anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities producing biomethane. While other countries worry about future energy security, we can store our energy needs in silo pits and feed stores.
What is currently lacking is the collective ambition to make this happen. As an industry, we must highlight the positive role we can play in the future, while also ensuring that the opportunity provided by AD is not grasped by venture capitalists and big business from other parts of the world. Farmer-led co-ops and local businesses in NI must be open to stepping forward.
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