At a ceremony in the Heritage Hotel in Killenard, Co Laois, the 11 farmers picked up prizes in front of industry guests from all over Ireland.

All 39 finalists in competition were present at the ceremony. These awards recognise and reward the exceptional performance being achieved by members of Bord Bia’s Sustainable Quality Assurance shemes for all three sectors.

The finalists all meet high standards around food safety, animal health, welfare and traceability. Ireland is the first country to assess the environmental performance of farms on such a large scale under its Origin Green programme. The results represent a unique selling point for Irish food exports, proving to food buyers that producers are operating with due care for the surrounding environment, resulting in a low carbon footprint. Carbon footprint is an assessment of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of 1kg of output. Ireland has the lowest carbon footprint in Europe for dairy, while the carbon footprint of Irish beef has been shown to be the fifth lowest in the EU.

On the beef side of the competition, 12 finalists were selected from almost 50,000 cattle farms which are certified members of Bord Bia’s Beef Sustainable Assurance Scheme, based on their sustainability credentials. There were category winners in each of the following systems: suckler to beef, suckler to weanling/store, weanling store to beef and dairy calf to beef.

On the dairy side of the awards, 15 finalists were selected from the 16,000 dairy farms which are certified members of the Bord Bia’s Sustianable Dairy Assurance Scheme. Winners were selected for the small/medium herd size category, large herd size category and reduced carbon footprint category.

Horticulture

The Irish horticultural industry has an estimated annual farmgate value of €380m. The category award winners represented mushrooms, potatoes, protected crops and fruit and field vegetables.

The 12 finalists for the horticulture awards were visited over recent weeks by the judges representing, Bord Bia, UCD and Institute of Technology Blanchardstown, while each beef and dairy competitor was visited by a panel comprising Bord Bia, Teagasc and the Irish Farmers Journal.