Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 15 January 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Dairy Sector: Irish Dairy Board

10:10 am

Mr. Aaron Forde:

It does extend to IDB support financially in conjunction with Bord Bia. That is a subset of Origin Green about which Senator Mary Ann O'Brien asked.

We are strong supporters of all those initiatives and will continue to be so. International competitors, who do not have the advantage of grass-based production or the taste it delivers to dairy products, are attempting to move into this space, and unless we have the scientific evidence to back up what we are saying, we will be short-changed. We are very strong supporters of the sustainable dairy assurance scheme, SDAS.