Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I was delighted to hear what the Minister was doing. Food Harvest 2020 is an admirable project. I had the pleasure of being a member of the expert group which established Bord Bia back in 1994, on which I look back as a great success. On that occasion I presented a minority report, although it was only half a page long, stating this new food business - it was not yet called Bord Bia - should be established anywhere but in the then Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. When food and agriculture are dealt with together, food will always take second place owing to the strength of the agriculture community. I still have that belief, but I am delighted to see what the Minister has done, on which I congratulate him.

I have a great belief that if a country is to be successful in any business, it must be first or second in whatever it is doing. We are not doing well enough in this regard. Ireland is the 24th largest milk producer in the world and the 17th largest beef producer. This is a real challenge. I am a bore in speaking about New Zealand, but I recently met a man from Fonterra, the world's largest dairy exporter. New Zealand is the same size as Ireland, with a population even smaller than ours, yet this New Zealand company is now building dairy farms in China to provide special products, mainly dairy products, for the Chinese market. New Zealand lamb is recognised around the world. How can New Zealand to do this when we have not been able to do it yet? We must find a way to do it. I think we can, which is why I encourage research, innovation and whatever else we need. I am impressed by the fact that Nestlé which is based in Switzerland has 5,000 research and development scientists working on new products in the food business.

We must reconsider the issue of genetically modified foods. The world population is to increase by 2.3 billion by 2050 and we do not produce enough food to cope with that increase. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization states we need a 70% increase in food production and we will not be able to do this unless we use modern methods. We will be out of date and behind the scenes if we do not. We must improve crop productivity, whatever way we do it, and I do not think we will achieve this if we do not move with the times.

One of my heroes in life is Norman Borlaug who received the Nobel Prize. He has been called the father of the green revolution and is credited with saving India from famine in the 1960s when the level of wheat production jumped from 12.3 million tonnes in 1966 to 20 million tonnes in 1970. He stated at the time:

Biotechnology helps farmers produce higher yields on less land. This is a very environmentally favourable benefit. For example, the world's grain output in 1950 was 692 million tons. Forty years or so later, the world's farmers used about the same amount of acreage but they harvested 1.9 billion tons - a 170% increase! We would have needed an additional 1.8 billion hectares of land, instead of the 600 million used, had the global cereal harvest of 1950 prevailed in 1999 using the same conventional farming methods. If we had continued practising conventional farming, we would have cut down millions of acres of forest, thereby destroying wildlife habitat, in order to increase cropland to produce enough food for an escalating population.

We have it in our own hands, but we must recognise that research, technology and genetically modified products represent the way of the future. Those of us who say we do not like this will not succeed. It is like those who said more than 100 years ago they would not use any technology but would continue to produce in the same way as in the past. That is not the way of the future. I strongly encourage the Minister not to close his eyes on the opportunities available. I congratulate him on what he is doing, but let us make sure we continue to grow by placing food ahead of agricultural production.