Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Review of Food Harvest 2020 Strategy: Discussion (Resumed) with Irish Dairy Board and Bord Bia

3:05 pm

Mr. Bernard Condon:

On the specific question of whether Food Harvest 2020 will happen, from a dairy perspective, we have met with all of our members a minimum of four times. They solicited feedback from their farmers on the likely level of increase in milk production. All the indications are that the targets set out will be achieved. We are confident that will be the case. Our role thereafter is to figure out what products the milk will go into and we will have a role also in deciding the products concerned and establishing a route to market for them. We are happy that we are on track in that regard and that the targets will be achieved. The outstanding issue relates to investment by the co-operatives in processing capacity. We cannot comment directly on that because it is their business as opposed to ours.