Dr. Tom Kelly:

Teagasc welcomes the opportunity to clarify its role and relationship with software companies.

Teagasc is the agriculture and food development authority, a national body providing integrated research, advisory and training services to the agriculture industry. The combination of research and innovation support in one organisation uniquely positions Teagasc to ensure effective and efficient knowledge transfer in rural areas to generate sustainable wealth creation. This marks Teagasc apart from other knowledge providers, such as those in the higher education sector. The organisation conducts knowledge management activities in the agrifood sector through research to generate and procure new knowledge and information, advice in transferring information, and education and training to increase capacity of people within programmes.

Teagasc has identified information and communication technology, ICT, as one of the major opportunities available to increase the adoption of key technologies at farm level and to assist in the delivery of modern advisory services to Irish farmers. Under continuous efficiency gains, Teagasc has implemented an organisational change programme in recent years in order to ensure that it remains fit for purpose and delivers value for public money. The implication of this is that in the future Teagasc will be a smaller, highly innovative, efficient and focused organisation.

Teagasc has used computerisation of farmer information since the 1970s when it provided computerised analysis of farm performance for comparison or benchmarking purposes. Examples include DairyMIS, which was used to analyse data on farm efficiency factors and the national farm survey analysis, which is used for economic research purposes and international comparisons. The information Teagasc collects and processes is a very important asset in showing progress over time and in providing information which is independently verifiable to farmers and policy makers. Teagasc also maintains a database of soil analysis results and the soils map of Ireland, which are important for ongoing essential planning. Computerisation has helped Teagasc to be more effective in how it does its work.

The research, advisory and educational support for the development of Irish agriculture is critical for the future. The ambitious targets for expansion in Food Harvest 2020 and the ongoing challenges of reduced staffing and budgets are pressure points forcing prioritisation of our resources and activities. Teagasc sees the investment in information and communication technology as part of it doing its job better. Teagasc participated in a number of e-Government projects as part of the information society fund, which encouraged increased efficiency in the delivery of public services. The Teagasc e-college, e-profit monitor and soil analysis online were some of the projects which qualified for support.

Teagasc has from the outset promoted and supported the use of third-party farm software. The reality is that these packages are very good recording and analysis tools and are used on several Teagasc farms for livestock management. However, the world has moved on and the means by which data are collected, shared and used are completely different today than in the 1980s and 1990s. Teagasc has a responsibility to its clients to give them accurate and specific advice based on farmers' own information and information from research and similar farms. The benchmarking of farm performance is from the days of DairyMIS to today, with the Teagasc e-profit monitor, Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, reports and grassland management information, and it is now more important than ever. The use of this information by 12,000 farmers participating in discussion groups and potentially 28,000 other farmers in one-to-one consultation is an enormous competitive advantage for Ireland, as other countries do not have this.

Teagasc in its education programmes provides ICT skills training which is guided by stakeholders who participate in the Teagasc education forum. The Internet provides students with access to information, specific services and interaction with other students through social media. Students are required to use the Internet to access and record general and more specific information for their farm and so benefit from the demonstration of adding value to data.

Teagasc has integrated the use of basic entry level ICT tasks into its training programmes for all its courses. These involve the use of and engagement with online databases such as the ICBF database and e-profit monitor for technical and financial benchmarking, as well as various simple spreadsheets for recording, financial planning, grass budgeting and so on. In most instances tasks that would have been previously carried out by paper and calculator are now done electronically and students are exposed to the basics of computer use for their own farm. The use of farm software packages for training of students was always problematic. However, all students are expected to use the reports for colleges and other farms for the relevant enterprises.

For more than four decades computer models and decision support tools have been advocated for guiding farm management. The focus was initially for research but subsequently it was directed to farm advice, which was mostly financial, as well as animal and feeding management. In early years their adoption was modest but in recent years there has been a greater uptake with advances in communication technologies.

The use of a bank of accurate information from trusted farms that are statistically representative of a population is a key development for research. The use of data recorders in the field has been replaced partly by the capacity to tap into farmers' data with their permission and use these in research. A good example of this is the use that ICBF make of data collected through the national breeding database which is used by farmers. Teagasc has been involved in the development of a range of models, such as the Moorepark dairy system model, the Grange beef model, Pasturebase Ireland and so forth, as well as decision support tools such as the mastitis cost calculator, grass calculator and milk payment tool and so on. In recent years these have been used in research, advisory and education activities. It is internationally accepted that the development of these ICT tools will be critical in the adoption of key technologies at farm level.

In the future it can be anticipated that ICT tools will play a much greater role in the adoption of key technologies at farm level. Farmers should be free to choose the best solution or combination of solutions to suit their individual requirements. To drive efficiency, the industry and Teagasc require access to high quality farm performance data, which enables sensible decision making on priority areas for industry development as well as enabling discussion around individual farm benchmarking and cross-farm comparison. In the modern world this means getting data into web-based databases as efficiently as possible. It is important that Teagasc is allowed to develop these technologies further to increase the competitiveness of Irish agriculture.

Teagasc has an obligation to provide the best research, advisory and education services to Irish agriculture and the application of modern ICT is critical in achieving this obligation. That is in line with Government policy. Teagasc has a long history in the development of ICT software applications to be used in Irish agriculture, and farm computing is moving from stand-alone computer packages to web-based databases, which is enabling data sharing and informed decision making through tools like the Teagasc e-profit monitor.

Teagasc has in the past and will in the future collaborate with commercial software companies in the development of their software and facilitate the development of interfaces to our software.

Teagasc, like any other organisation, provides services to a large client base and should be able to use the best products to deliver our service in an efficient manner. Again, this is in line with Government policy. It is critical that industry good databases are managed, validated and secured by industry good organisations for the maximum benefit of Irish farmers. I thank the committee for its time and interest.