Tillage Sector: Statements Dail Éireann — 2025-10-15 ============================================================ Noel Grealish (IND), Galway West I thank all of the Members who have spoken today. The Minister, Deputy Heydon, the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, and I have listened carefully to what has been raised by the Opposition and those on the Government benches. For a few minutes I will speak about my role in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine as Minister of State with responsibility for new markets, food promotion, research and development. It is crucial that I state how important agriculture is to the Irish economy. Over the past six or seven years exports have grown by in excess of €6 billion or €7 billion, with more than €19 billion worth of farm produce being exported around the world in 2024. Ireland exports 90% of what it produces. We export enough food to feed in excess of 30 million people. Recently I had the great honour of attending when Ireland was invited by South Africa to be a guest nation at a meeting of the G20 in Cape Town. All of the major world agriculture Ministers were there and we had many bilateral meetings with them. They were very impressed to hear the amount of produce that Ireland exports. This is a credit to all the farmers, the processors and, in particular, Bord Bia. I must acknowledge the tremendous work Bord Bia does. It has 14 offices throughout the world. It works full-time sourcing new markets as well as looking after the customers we have. It is also crucial to give service to the customers to whom we supply our products. Recently I was at the Anuga world trade show held in Germany, where I had a number of meetings with many of the major suppliers to supermarkets and many supermarket owners. The one thing they kept bringing up about Irish produce was the quality of the product we sell into their shops. They were highly complimentary of the products we sell. Much of this is down to the farmers. The issue of farm succession has been raised today. At the G20 in Cape Town in excess of two hours was devoted to this topic. It is not just a problem in Ireland or Europe; it is a problem worldwide. It is an issue that has to be addressed. I know the Minister, Deputy Heydon, has spoken to the Commissioner about this and it will be an important issue for the European Commission with regard to getting young people into farming. On 7 March a study was launched by Dr. Martina Roche of Maynooth University which found that women accounted for 13.4% of farm holders. Recently I opened a conference in Maynooth on promoting women's involvement in farming. There were in excess of 100 women at the conference. You should see the enthusiasm they had when they spoke about the role they now play in farming. It is important to get new young people involved and it is also crucial to get women involved in agriculture. In the context of the research and development end of my role, which I have to say I thoroughly enjoy, I recently visited UCD Lyons Farm in Celbridge, which operates in conjunction with Teagasc and towards which my Department gives a lot of money, to see the products, studies and research being done there, particularly the research with regard to grass to reduce emissions from animals and the food products and medicines given to animals. Many of these programmes cover the whole period from a calf being born to the animal being slaughtered. Different food products and different types of grass are given to the animals and research is done on that. A lot of good reports are now coming out in that regard. The agriculture spokespersons on the benches opposite should visit that farm. I really enjoyed it. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-10-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:13+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-10-15