Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I shall tell the Deputy the reason. This post-carbon economy needs to be able to support a sufficient number of jobs to meet its basic needs and must be run in a way that prevents problems whose cost will become unaffordable.

With all this in mind I am delighted my position makes me responsible for the development of Ireland's food and drink industry. Recent figures show it had an annual estimate of €16.6 billion in turnover, namely, 8% of GDP. The food and drink industry accounts for 20% of net exports and 9.1% of total employment. The industry includes 678 companies and 136,500 family-run farms with a further 111,000 people employed in the food and drink industry and in associated services.

It is obvious why the food and drink industry is regarded as the country's most important indigenous industry. When I saw the Fine Gael Private Members' motion it appeared at first to be long and comprehensive. It mentioned important developments such as broadband, bioenergy products, electric grid construction, water treatment and supply, electric transport infrastructure and various engineering and construction projects. I know the Opposition cannot do everything but I believe it is important to try to fill in the gaps in the debate. Unfortunately, I did not see any mention of infrastructure relating to food and agriculture. Notwithstanding this omission by Fine Gael, I wish to state the Government is committed to developing the potential of food industry infrastructure to ensure food security and establish a maximum number of sustainable jobs in Ireland. We continue to market the country abroad as the clean green food island.

Sadly, as input costs rise it will be difficult to sustain some of the jobs which depend on those input costs. However, there are opportunities to create new jobs in the transition period now under way as we move towards a post-fossil fuel economy. At present the international food production and trading system means that for every calorie of food an EU citizen eats there is a requirement to use seven to ten calories of fossil fuel in the production and transportation of that one food calorie. In the case of a South African carrot sold in Ireland, the ration is more like 66 fossil fuel calories required to bring one calorie of food onto an Irish plate. It must be borne in mind that one third of fossil fuel input is made up of agri-chemical inputs in food production. This considerable dependence on fossil fuel energy to meet basic food needs is one of the many reasons organic food production, for example, is growing in popularity. On average, organic production uses one third less fossil fuel and therefore is more resilient to fluctuating fossil fuel prices. Research by the Soil Association in the UK indicates that organic farms sustain one third more jobs than do non-organic farms. Some organic farms have increased their efficiency to an extraordinary extent. One farm I visited in Oxfordshire in England was 78% more energy efficient than a non-organic equivalent, according to a University of Essex study.

Another part of my work is to encourage the establishment of new food businesses and to highlight new opportunities for new businesses to grow. These opportunities are enhanced with the development of planning infrastructure which facilitates more direct sales, for example, through farm shops and farmers' markets.

Food production is not just about making money but also about developing sustainable jobs. Given the cost of obesity and poor health to our health service, we also need to have healthy food in Ireland. The 2005 report from the national taskforce on obesity highlights the very great costs of overlooking this issue and shows that provision of healthy food is essential to a sustainable society. The report indicates that premature deaths, days lost to the workplace due to illnesses arising from obesity and the many medical costs of diet-related illnesses land the State with a cost of well over €4 billion per year. Clearly all efforts to encourage the consumption of healthy food need to be encouraged if we are to have that sustainable post-fossil fuel economy.

I hope it is clear to my colleagues on the Fine Gael benches why I feel this is vital. If we are talking about grids, transport and all the other consumers of energy we must include food. It is not obvious enough, unfortunately, that we need fossil fuel energy to produce the food we now take for granted. We will not have it in future so must move to a post-fossil fuel food economy.

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