Mary Coughlan's document is too short on figures and targets for us to be confident of its success, writes Seán MacConnell
The action plan for agriculture published yesterday by Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan was long on generalities but short on figures and targets.
The plan is part of a wider Fianna Fáil exercise across various Government departments to prepare submissions for the national development plan which will be published later this year, in good time for the next election.
A little bit like a menu in a restaurant with no prices displayed, the plan is indeed very worthy, chock-full of aspiration, but hard to evaluate.
The small but sturdy Irish agriculture sector is no doubt under threat from globalisation, a more liberalised trade policy and reformers in Brussels, but is very well supported by both EU and national funds. Last year, for instance, farmers received €2.4 billion in direct supports and this year the figure will be in the region of €1.7 billion.
Representing 8.9 per cent of GDP, with exports of more than €7 billion, the sector employs 163,000 people, including the 53,000 jobs in food manufacturing and processing.
The Minister said she wanted to ensure that the public realised the importance of the agriculture and food industry to the economy.
Those who focus on information technologies should remember, she said, the 53,000 employed directly in food processing, with most of their plants Irish owned. Yesterday the Minister said the three key requirements for success in the future will be competitiveness, innovation and consumer focus.
She said competitiveness was not optional for such an export-oriented sector and this was the primary objective on which the plan was based.
The cutting edge of this new competitive drive, she said, would be an enhanced role for Teagasc, the agriculture and food development body. This will include the introduction of new centres of excellence.
The Minister would not be drawn on the number of farmers who might be around in 2015 other than to say that numbers would continue to fall, but at a slower rate than in the rest of Europe.
In addition, the new Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, Mary Wallace, who has responsibility for forestry, could not say how many acres of trees Ireland would need to stay ahead in the sector.
Ms Wallace said she was awaiting the report on forestry, which would be published soon and which would set targets for afforestation in the period covered by the plan, 2007-13.
In all, there were 166 actions outlined in the plan, double the number of recommendations made in the Agri-Vision 2015 Committee Report compiled by Alan Dukes with a panel of experts, which was published more than 18 months ago. It will be interesting to see if yesterday's words will be turned into actions.