The need for more food, not less

Economists are often viewed with scepticism, as either harbingers of doom or unrealistic optimists. Not Jim Power, who always brings a frank and fresh perspective to his subject matter. He recently spoke about the realities of Irish, European and global food production on a KCLR podcast hosted by John Purcell. During the broadcast, Jim said that despite the extreme weather conditions experienced this year, Irish farming is in reasonably good shape. However, being so weather dependent, farmers are, naturally, very impacted, both physically and psychologically, by prolonged poor weather. On the positive side of the economist’s equation, he highlighted the reductions in recent months in energy, fertiliser and other production costs, relative to where they were a year ago. “When input costs increased dramatically with the onset of the Ukrainian war, output prices also increased for farmers. The net effect was that farmers continued to achieve reasonable growth in income last year and that continued into the early months of 2023.”

Geo-political concerns

A concern he has is around those geo-political events and their potential impact on energy costs over the next six months, which will be a focus of attention for farmers: “Obviously, agriculture is very energy dependent as are many other sectors of the economy. On the whole, farming is doing ok, but there are the obvious immediate, medium- and long-term challenges for farmers in relation to the environmental agenda. There is growing pressure to cut production of farm output in this country.” This policy approach, he said, concerns him. “I am dubious about this, because if I look at the global situation, a growing population will require significant increases in food production. World food production capability is being significantly distorted and impacted by climate change, so I believe that, in the longer term, there will be a huge focus on countries like Ireland for food production. A lot of other countries will become increasingly undermined as food production regions because of climate change and extreme weather events. Despite the weather here in recent months, Ireland is still in a relatively good position, compared to many countries and is likely to remain so. I think Ireland’s status as a food-producing nation must be protected. I am sceptical about those environmental claims about food production. We need to feed an increasing global population.”

Binary debate

Asked whether that sophisticated argument had been taken on board, Jim was adamant that it had not: “The discussion is entirely binary with no account being taken of the need to produce more food, in countries that are most capable of doing so. The entire focus is on what is happening here in Ireland. The debate has certainly not taken account of the broader global situation. I believe that realisation will dawn on people over the next couple of years as we see increased flooding and droughts in major food-producing countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and so on. I would be very optimistic about the potential for the Irish agri-food sector to be an important global player in food production over the coming decades.”

Safeguarding

What Jim did not say, and it should be raised as an important aspect of the debate, is that if we continue on the road of forcing reductions in Irish food output, there is a real danger of permanently stifling our production capabilities. While taking account of the need to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of Irish food production, we must safeguard our food production capabilities, as other global food sources literally wither away.