Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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373. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if the Food Wise 2025 high-level implementation committee has engaged in a reassessment of the growth projections contained within the Food Wise 2025 strategy in view of the challenges raised by Brexit and Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35900/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Food Wise High Level Implementation Committee has met four times since of the outbreak of the pandemic and focussed on the issues around COVID-19 and Brexit preparedness. I chaired my first meeting of that Committee in September where we discussed the Government's ongoing response to COVID-19 and the various supports that have been put in place across Government and the State Agencies. We also discussed work on Brexit preparedness, which has of course been ongoing for the last few years.

Activity within the agri-food sector is essential to maintaining food supply chains and therefore has continued in operation during the pandemic. While production was not significantly impacted, demand for food and drink products were subject to widespread market disturbance. In the first few months of the pandemic there were lower prices across all commodities, but these have now largely stabilised. Although food retail demand increased, it did not offset the decline in food service demand, which experienced a near-total collapse due to the shutdown of the hospitality sector across Europe and beyond. That demand imbalance had and is still having significant consequences for primary producers and agri-food businesses. Agri-food exports for January to August 2020 are down 3.3% in value compared to the first 8 months of 2019. My Department will continue to monitor this and other impacts for the sector.

The agri-food sector has been well served over the last 20 years by having a series of ten-year strategies to guide its development and we have committed in the Programme for Government that this should continue with the preparation of a new strategy to 2030. A Committee of sector stakeholders has been working since late last year on this new strategy. Their terms of reference are to outline the vision and key objectives, with associated actions, required to ensure the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the agri-food sector in the decade ahead. Obviously the Committee will consider both COVID-19 and Brexit in developing this new strategy.