Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

The agriculture sector has been at the forefront of innovative ideas and research and development for years. I refer specifically to work done in the Department, the national advisory training body, ACOT, and Teagasc. As the Minister of State noted, significant research and development is being done at the Teagasc research centres in Grange and Moore Park. We must emphasise to farmers at the farm gate the need to get our food products into new and emerging markets where the population is growing. The mature markets in Europe and so on have almost reached capacity. The real potential for Irish agriculture lies in the emerging markets. For this reason, we must focus our resources to ensure Irish products are sold on these markets.

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