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Category Archives: Irish agri-food strategy
IS MINISTER GOVE GOING TO BREXIT BY THE GREEN DOOR?
This post first appeared online at http://www.thatsfarming.com on the 20th September 2017 Is a prerequisite for a politician to be able to balance one’s principles with the winning of votes? One wonders if Michael Gove is not showing himself to … Continue reading
THE REWARDS MUST GO TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE
Storm Ophelia recently reminded people of how fragile our modern way of life is. Take away our electricity and gone is our entertainment; as batteries run dry our communications crumble; and even hot water for tea becomes scarce. Of course, … Continue reading
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CHERRY PICKING CAN YIELD A BITTER HARVEST
This post first appeared online at http://www.thatsfarming.com on the 23rd August 2017 When I started delving into the Irish agri-food industry, an early finding was a preference for focusing on partial farm-production costs. For some reason which, in my less … Continue reading
IT IS TIME TO RECOGNIZE THE ISSUES FACING FARMING
This post first appeared online at http://www.thatsfarming.com on the 20th June 2017 So, parts of the Irish farming community have now decided to join the climate change debate. Whether you are a believer of a denier, it was, nonetheless, obvious … Continue reading
IS IRISH FARMING PREPARED FOR MAJOR CAP REFORM?
Very shortly after I posted to my blog yesterday, I received notification of a blog posting by prof. Alan Matthews; it was about a paper he had co-authored with, among others, prof. Allan Buckwell. The paper can be accessed here … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, Irish agri-food strategy, Uncategorized
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IRELAND’S FAILURE TO DOMESTICATE THE UK FOOD MARKET
As I was writing about Brexit earlier, I was thinking upon the position that Irish farmers now find themselves in. Elsewhere I have said that it is the single most important issue facing Irish farming since the Emergency [that is … Continue reading
IS ANYONE VISITING CHELTENHAM OR AINTREE THIS YEAR?
With so much discussion going on in the Irish farming industry about Brexit and free-trade agreements at present, I thought it was time to ask the Irish farmer to have a look at their primary market, the UK, and the … Continue reading
‘LEGUME-FED’, ‘HERBAGE-FED’ OR JUST ‘GRASS-FED’?
Much is spoken and written about ‘grass-fed’ in Ireland? But how is/will the label be used? Will ‘grass-fed’ be a characteristic of well-defined, linked-to-farming, designated-origin products or will it be a generic term used to promote all Irish meat and … Continue reading
RISK MANAGEMENT IN A VOLATILE IRISH CLIMATE
A subject that was particularly disliked by many of our agricultural business management students was statistics. So why did we teach it? The rational was simply that farm management planning is about risk management and it is imperative that decision-makers … Continue reading
DIVERSITY AND COMPETITION FOR OUR FOOD SYSTEMS
Dear Mr Hogan, One applauds your intention to create a fairer food supply-chain for the farmer and the consumer. But can this really be achieved through regulation? With a food industry dominated by major corporations, can regulation bring about change … Continue reading
