Mr. Bill Callanan:

The Deputy will be very familiar with Food Vision, which sets out a vision built by stakeholders, in the main, regarding the evolution of agriculture and the requirement for the pillars of an innovative and competitive food sector based on sustainability around those three pillars, namely, environmentally, socially and economically viable food production. The value and importance of food production in Ireland is significant in terms of about 8% to 10% of GDP. A similar quantity of people are working in the sector. As the Deputy can understand, it is significant in terms of the value to the rural economy in particular.

I would describe it to farmers as an evolution and, in many ways, a revolution in terms of food production. In the first instance, for many people in the world food availability is the only criteria they are assessing against. We know significant numbers of people do not have the comfort of knowing they have food. When we have achieved that, food safety is the next standard people are looking at. We have a very good reputation in that regard. The next standard is sustainability. That is what we are focusing on in agriculture. We have to recognise there are a lot of merits in Ireland in terms of grass-based and rain-fed production in this climate, which is environmentally positive compared with a lot of other countries.