Ms Triona McCormack:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the invitation to discuss the issues that have just been mentioned. Members have a copy of my statement and they are probably familiar with UCD, but it is worth noting that we are a leading international university, as well as being the largest university in Ireland, with a strong base in agriculture and food science. That is the perspective from which we come to address the committee

I will briefly outline the key challenges facing the agrifood sector and will highlight how UCD and its partners are seeking to address those challenges through research and education. There is an opportunity for Ireland and for Irish farming, in particular, because this sector is important for the economy. There is a great opportunity for us to lead in, and beyond, Europe, given key legislation is going through the European Parliament, the report entitled, The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability report, has recently been published and the multi-annual financial framework, MFF.

It is a key point in time and there is an opportunity for Irish agriculture to take a leadership role. We feel we should be there at that table.

Let me summarise the challenges. We see a set of independent challenges. They are all well rehearsed and probably very familiar to this committee. One is the challenge of the production system and how we increase production. At the same time, there is a challenge of nutrition. It is worth mentioning to the committee that one in three globally is malnourished. In other words, the nutrition content of their diet is not where it should be. There is also a sustainability challenge. We are all very familiar with that as we look at the effects of climate change. Last, and with a particular impact for Ireland in terms of the size and scale of the agrifood sector, there is an economic challenge. We need to balance all those challenges, their interdependencies and their relatedness. The production, nutrition, sustainability and economic challenges are critical to address and we need to balance them together. That is why we believe adopting a whole-systems response is the only way we can respond to the challenges. This is where policy can help. There are complementary policies that can drive innovation and investment in the changes needed for the sector. If we take advantage of this opportunity, the sector will have the opportunity to make the step change and Ireland will really be able to play a leadership role in agriculture internationally.

At UCD we are in the business of creating new knowledge and educating future business people and lawyers, but also farmers and those who work in the agrifood sector. We really feel this is a very exciting time for the sector. Never was there a time when the amount of new exciting knowledge being created has been so pervasive. It is up to us now to take advantage of this and ascertain how we can embed it in our systems and structures nationally.

It is an exciting time to move into the sector. We are, however, alive to the fact that it does not always feel that way for those involved, particularly those in the farming community. There are challenges beyond those we could resolve in that context. I refer to the challenges of access to infrastructure and to the community systems required to make living in an agri-based economy and society viable. All those are challenges and we recognise that. What we can do is bring practical examples to the table of innovative and exciting ways of approaching the challenges we face in respect of production, nutrition, and sustainability systems. In this regard, I will focus on and highlight opportunities in three areas. The first is an emerging area, the bio-economy. The second concerns the merging of two sectors in which Ireland has a leading position, the ICT and agrifood sectors, in the context of precision agriculture. The third is the future of food and nutrition.

I will deal with the bio-economy first. There is a very exciting opportunity for Ireland in the bio-economy. We have a rich resource base. The bio-economy is really about how we make better use of our raw materials and resources and how we optimise and maximise the value of those resources. We see opportunities in this regard and have developed new technologies for converting those resources into various products, such as bio-based plastics. This is not all about the production of food as it is also about the production of higher-value food additives and food ingredients. New technologies are coming on stream that enable that.

Let me give a very practical example of how this is happening on the ground. We have been very closely involved in and have championed the development of the bio-economy campus, located in Lisheen, County Tipperary. Many members of this committee are familiar with what is happening in Tipperary in that regard. The initiative brings together a number of industry partners. Glanbia is a primary partner but there are others also. They have been brought together with local government in Tipperary County Council and ourselves in the university with a view to bringing new technologies on-stream. The institutes of technology are playing a role in examining what future training capacity might be needed on the ground in the bio-economy campus. The aim is to set up a new bio-refining plant and a new pilot facility for the new technologies. Essentially, the objective is to consider how what were always considered to be waste products from the dairy sector can be repurposed and how we can create higher-value products from those - bio-based plastics in this instance. This is a great example of how all the actors can come together to create a very different future. The community in Lisheen was facing €50 million coming out of the local economy and the loss of jobs in the region. Now it faces a very different future, with quite a vibrant bio-economy campus that is probably leading in Ireland and which is in one of the European model demonstrator regions. Lisheen is now expecting €75 million to go into its economy and growth in jobs. Some 1,800 jobs are predicted by the industry partners involved, either directly or indirectly. That is a very real, tangible example of how new knowledge, training and education can be brought to bear to mobilise people around opportunities. What we can look to do now is extend the opportunity back into the production systems while asking what we should be doing with the raw material coming out. We must determine whether there are further opportunities that we can pursue and how we can get the conversation going within the community.

Another area I highlighted was that of ICT and precision agriculture. As I stated, these are two sectors in which Ireland excels. The use of big data is pervasive in every single sector, agriculture being no different. New satellite technologies and new data analytics tools can be brought to bear on the sector. An example of where UCD is working very actively on the ground in this regard is its work with Origin Enterprises in the cereal production systems. In this regard, we are considering increasing the yield from cereal growth - winter barley in this case. When increasing yield, one of the challenges is achieving a balance with sustainability. How does one do so without increasing the environmental impact? In this instance, we are bringing together the data technologies and new soil strategies and putting them into the hands of the growers in a format whereby information is very easy to access. The objective is to allow the growers to use them to increase their yield at the same time as decreasing the environmental impact of the production system. It demonstrates that nice balance between the economics, sustainability and production.

With regard to food and nutrition, this is an area in which we really excel. We have considerable capacity through the Institute of Food and Health. One of the programmes, Food for Health Ireland, involves many of the institutions coming together with the major actors in the dairy sector seeking to mine the dairy product to determine how we can extract higher-value ingredients from that raw material or resource. It is a matter of changing and diversifying the product portfolio of the Irish dairy producers from one represented by a high-volume, low-margin commodity to one represented by a higher-value product. It is also worth noting that having a resource base like UCD, with our international reputation, can do other things for the sector. I must highlight in particular the recent announcement on beef imports into China from Ireland. The conversations in this regard started long ago. The key food safety actors within the Institute for Food and Health have been engaged with the Chinese institutions, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the relevant government departments for many years working their way up to the making of a decision that was an acceptable one for the Chinese to make. Our role in opening new markets and in using our international relationships to try to further advance the cause of, and case for, Irish agrifood is one that we can focus on.

Let me refer to the future for young farmers, as mentioned at the outset. There is concern that farming is not an attractive enough career for young people. We need to work together to really understand how we can make it a compelling career. If, however, one bears in mind what we have just talked about and the new technologies at play, one concludes that a future farmer will have to be a data analyst and production-systems expert in addition to being a sustainability expert, business owner and entrepreneur. In this regard, there is a package that is very attractive, notwithstanding the comments made earlier about the infrastructural challenges. Along with our partners in the institutes of technology and Teagasc, we can start to really tell that story and ascertain whether we can change the perspective on farming as a career.

We are very optimistic about the future. We believe we are at a point of opportunity. Considerable change has taken place in the agrifood sector during the past few years. We believe there is a huge opportunity for us to take a leadership role. It is where we should be in Europe and we believe that can deliver back into Ireland. The example of the bio-economy I gave was mobilised by €22 million in funding coming back to us from Europe. We can see the way in which that engagement can deliver dividends. We are hopeful but we need to figure out how we can all work together within the system to achieve the kinds of opportunities I outlined and to deliver on them.