More young people needed on farm - key to delivering the missions of Food Vision 2030

The Food Vision 2030 ‘A World Leader in Sustainable Food Systems’ conference being held in The Printworks Dublin Castle today (Thursday, 13th October) has two common themes namely sustainability and generational renewal.

The Conference has been addressed by An Taoiseach and Minister for State Pippa Hackett who both spoke about the importance of sustaining the sector into the future. Mission 2 in the Food Vision 2030 strategy is to create ‘Viable and Resilient Primary Producers, with enhanced Wellbeing.’ A core element of sustainability is the need to support generational renewal across farm enterprises.

MACRA National President John Keane said “young farmers in Ireland are jointly the most educated farmers across the EU together with France, and we completely understand the need to sustain the sector in terms of the environment and also in terms of delivering on demographic change on farm. Enhancing the wellbeing of farmers across the sectors will also be key to retaining and attracting new people into the sector. Studies published earlier this week by UCD found stark realities in relation to farmers current wellbeing.”

Mr Keane said “to deliver the ambition set out in Food Vision 2030, it is clear that significant investment is needed in driving generational renewal with new measures needed to support this change and also investing in support frameworks and services that help farmers deal with the pressures associated with farming.

The future of the agriculture sector in Ireland is dependent on delivering a generational change on farm, if that is successful young farmers and innovators will deliver the environmental obligations,” concluded John Keane.