Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Food Wise 2025, the new ten-year strategy for the agrifood sector published last July, replaced Food Harvest 2020. It identifies the opportunities and challenges facing the sector and provides an enabling strategy that will allow the sector to grow and prosper. Food Wise 2025 includes more than 400 specific recommendations spread across the cross-cutting themes of sustainability, innovation, human capital, market development and competitiveness, as well as specific sectoral recommendations.

The implementation process for any strategy is vital for its success. I chair the Food Wise high-level implementation committee, HLIC, with high-level representatives from all relevant Departments and State agencies. The committee reviews progress on detailed actions on a quarterly basis in order to identify and solve problems quickly. Stakeholders regularly present to the committee meetings on their priorities for particular sectors or themes and, by the end of this year, the HLIC will have reviewed in detail progress on the five cross-cutting themes and the 12 individual sectors outlined in Food Wise 2025. As such, it is very much a live and continuously updated process. For example, the HLIC convened following the UK vote to leave the EU to agree on a co-ordinated approach for the agrifood sector.

I today launched a first year progress report on Food Wise 2025, entitled "Steps to Success 2016".

Of the 414 actions in the Food Wise implementation plan, 330 were due to commence in 2015 or 2016. Of these 330 actions, 28% have been achieved or substantial action has been undertaken, and a further 67% have commenced and are progressing well.

Food Wise 2025 stressed the need for my Department, other Departments and State agencies to work collaboratively, and I am pleased to say this is occurring. Some of these collaborations are reported in Steps to Success 2016.

I would like to emphasise the following successes from year one of this ten-year strategy. Bord Bia’s The Thinking House, which opened in June, will be a world-class consumer insight and innovation centre. The meat technology centre, hosted in the Teagasc food research centre, Ashtown, will be an internationally leading centre of excellence for meat processing research and innovation. I am pleased to announce that in 2017 we will launch a major initiative focusing on improving grassland management use and profitability. The Department will establish a committee with representatives from the agencies and relevant stakeholders to plan a year-long programme of events. It will celebrate and build on Ireland’s comparative advantage in sustainable grass-feed production.

A detailed report on the status of Food Wise 2025 actions is available on my Department’s website together with the progress report for the first year.

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