Food sector not trying to feed ‘hungry’ Africa but targeting middle-class markets of China and India

Farming lobbyists and Government should not pretend Ireland is trying to feed the world, a conference for young farmers has been told. “The policy is premium products for premium markets, so let’s not pretend that we’re trying to feed the hungry in Africa,” said Friends of the Earth director Oisín Coghlan. “We’re aiming for the Chinese and Indian middle classes.”

He said some of the narratives farming lobbyists and the Government put out are that Ireland is going to feed the world and so it should not be asked to make the same effort environmentally to reduce carbon emissions as other sectors. “It sounds like we’re trying to get ourselves off the hook and we don’t need that excuse,” he told the Macra na Feirme annual conference in Abbeyleix, Co Laois.

The theme of the 50th annual conference was “Young farmers – the New Environmentalists”. Following agreement last week by European leaders on ambitious new emission reductions targets, Mr Coghlan said carbon emissions needed to be reduced by half globally and by 95 per cent in Europe. “Change is coming anyway whether we like it or not,” he told the youth organisation.

The choice was to be early adaptors to prevent catastrophic change or to be forced to change with the consequences that involved. “Our task is to manage the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable,” he said.

He pointed out that during the boom, agriculture was the only sector in which emissions levels fell, adding that at the time Ireland was the world’s sixth most generous country in contributions to developing countries and the sixth-largest pollution-producing country. “If everyone polluted like the Irish did, we would need three planets to absorb all our pollution,” he said.

Fine Gael MEP Mairéad McGuinness said young farmers needed to “regain the environmental clothes”. The vice-chairwoman of the European parliament said: “We have made the mistake and allowed others to talk about environment.”

She told the conference: “Farmers are more than the custodians of the land. You are the managers of nature.” Young farmers were the future of agriculture and the environment, she said. They should “know the environment issues, understand them but be part of the solution. Don’t let others tell you what to do.”

“It’s the challenge of the environment, which is around climate, biodiversity, sustainable use of resources and the young brains involved in farming,” Ms McGuinness added. “They’ll come up with solutions. Other organisations will talk about them but farmers will be the ones who will implement them.”

Matteo Bartolini, president of the European young farmer umbrella group CEJA, said it was not just the farmers and consumers who had to pay for environmental sustainability. “Every link in the chain should pay,” he said, adding that they needed to “show how it is good for us to be farmers but also environmentalists”.

CEJA represents the interests of two million young European farmers. Mr Bartolini said “young farmers are the new environmentalists” and should be given the necessary supports.