Food and energy now the big issues

FOOD and energy security and self-sufficiency – both in Ireland and across the Europe – are now ‘top of the agenda’ items as the war in Ukraine continues, Galway farmers heard at a meeting last week in Athenry, addressed by Ireland’s EU Commissioner, Mairead McGuinness.

Connacht IFA Chair, Pat Murphy, described last Thursday night’s meeting in the Raheen Woods Hotel as both sobering and informative with a high level of concern expressed about the future of the new CAP and also with the ongoing situation in Ukraine.

Commissioner McGuinness warned that with Russia being such a huge supplier of natural gas to Europe that this would continue to impact on the costs of farm inputs, and especially so with fertiliser.

She said that the invasion of Ukraine was a stark reminder that things like democracy, freedom and food could not be taken for granted by anyone.

The Commissioner also stressed that the economic sanctions being imposed on Russia were targeting the war machine of Putin – but not the Russian people.

Pat Murphy told the Farming Tribune that Commissioner McGuinness had been most amenable in terms of addressing the issues of concerns to farmers in the West of Ireland.

“We really did try to press the case of some basic changes in relation to the new CAP. It mustn’t be used to curtail food production at a time when one of the big issues facing the world is in feeding a growing population.

“Of course, we as farmers are committed to sustainability and the production of food in an environmentally friendly manner but obstacles must not be put in the way of farmers – and especially Irish farmers – as regards food production,” said Pat Murphy.

Commissioner McGuinness also told last Thursday’s meeting that Europe was far too dependent on Russia as a supplier of natural gas and oil with the incomes from such resources being used to fund that country’s war machine.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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