Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am in complete agreement with Deputy Durkan on this point. When we talk about these competing factors, one thing sometimes gets lost in this debate. When we talk about food security, some people think food security is us just producing enough food for ourselves and do not worry about Ireland having to export all the food we export. This is not the right approach. Out of 113 countries, Ireland has been judged to be the second most food secure country in the world. This is not because we produce every bit of food in this island that we consume here ourselves. It is because our food supply chains around the world have become extremely sophisticated and highly integrated. Looking at the Department's ten-year strategy - Food Vision 2030 - we can see it takes a food systems approach to how we produce our food in the future. It is cognisant of our environmental obligations but it is also cognisant of sustainability in all its forms. This is the key point that sometimes gets missed. Sustainability is not just about environmental sustainability, as important as this is. It is also about economic sustainability for the farmer and the societal sustainability of the rural community in which he or she lives. This is why everything we do is about having a clear focus on that and making sure the economic return is there for the farmer to produce this.

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