Food security

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118934612#Comment_118934612

Dear Mr VillageIdiot,

Irish consumption of beef is one of the top in Europe at about 18.6kg per person per head. Average worldwide is about 6.4kg per person per annum. Ireland thus exports enough beef to satisfy annual consumption for over 80 million people worldwide using average consumption. Not 30 million. At the high level of consumption, it still exports enough to satisfy annual demand for about 28 million people.

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/beef/were-eating-more-beef-in-ireland-but-european-consumption-remains-stagnant-35347305.html

Ireland also produces other meats such as lamb and poultry and plenty of pork for your rashers and sausages

Ireland produces beef because it is a higher value product. The same as how we try to produce Engineers for the tech industry, even though we "import" many more au-pairs than we "export".

If you were in charge of the country, would ya close down some of the colleges to stop educating all those students and maybe forcing them in childcare? It would fix our "au-pair import/export" imbalance". Obviously it would be better to fix that economically-low-value imbalance, right? Following your logic? That imbalance also shows that Irish people don't know how to look after children too! Again using your "logic". Women are opting to work in industry rather than staying at home and minding the children and instead they are getting a nanny in. The conclusion must be that they would never be capable of looking after their own kids should there be a crisis and the nanny wasn't there any more?

Let me put it into some more context for you. Based on only beef exports. (Not including what is produced and consumed here already). If you took the value of those exports at current global prices, and used it to buy rice, again at wholesale prices, it would equate to about 3.75 kg of rice for every single person in Ireland for every single day. That is just beef. It doesn't include any of the other meats or any other exports such as dairy products. Or even alcohol which, like it or not, is created from agricultural inputs. Some of those will be imported, but you are already happy with including those in your "calorie" calculation.

VillageIdiot71

Oh, dear.

If I was spending €1 billion a year subsidising an industry, I certainly would be asking if that's the best use of resources and certainly wouldn't not mention it at all. I'd be asking why I was putting down so large a subsidy, when (literally) 90% of the output is exported.

It's in relation to beef that the incredible claim is made of feeding 30 million people - in a context where the purpose is to mislead people into thinking Irish food production is huge and feeds ten times our national population. Beef and dairy is mostly what we produce - two thirds of our Gross Agricultural output. Yes, we do a few other things, including pork products and mushrooms. But we do damn all veg - 40% of all Irish field vegetables are grown in North County Dublin, which gives you an idea of just how niche it is.

As you've half pointed out, our beef production isn't the equivalent of the food needs of 30 (or 80) million people. That formula is easy to work out - one kg of beef has about 2,500/2,000 calories, about the same as the recommended daily calorie intake for an adult.

So, just counting crude food energy, a person would need the equivalent of 1 kg of beef per day to be adequately fed or 365 kg p.a.

So if we export 500 million kg of beef a year, that's enough food energy to feed 500 million/365 = about 1.4 million people.

Which would be a lot, if we weren't trying to delude ourselves into thinking it was so much more.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118921729#Comment_118921729

how does it cost you more than you can buy it for? I plant lots of root veg out my back and I only have a small terrace house and small back garden. Seed packets for parsnips, onions, beetroot etc cost like a euro or two and you get loads of seeds. Also tomatoes, seeds are for nothing, all they need is water and you get loads of them.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118943176#Comment_118943176

How about you deliver 5 tonnes a week, I'll pay you double the going rate.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118943969#Comment_118943969

why would I do that? i am just saying it's cheaper to grow some veg at home than to buy them

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118943989#Comment_118943989

It can be but that is very different to producing at scale.

Try to grow enough veg to feed 2 people for a year. That is doable.

Then go down selling that, say you get double what a farmer gets.

You'll see the horrendous reality of food security and the immense Contempt for it that permeates the Western world.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944001#Comment_118944001

I know scale is diff. I still think Ireland should branch out more in the food that it produces, however challenging it may be.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944014#Comment_118944014

It's not that challenging, the soil here is much more productive than many other places.

Key problems.

. We are an island away from large population centres, so additional costs.

. We have a highly relegated food safety sector, environmental protection standards, etc. Not like the Netherlands were a blind eye was the norm or Spain where no one would even imagine it mattered. Additional cost.

. Cheap Russian gas was the go to for glass houses on the continent.

. Limited opportunity to sell on, retailers will keep cutting your margin till it is no longer viable to produce.

Below cost selling in super markets has been the final nail in most agri as full time in Ireland outside of tillage or dairy.

. These are problems now across Europe as well, the days of the Dutch farmer letting shi7 flow of the field, spraying crops at rates that would poison a county here are coming to an end and that's Europe wide.

If people want sustainable food, basic workers rights, basic environmental protection then they will have to force the likes of Spain and The Netherlands to meet those standards. The idea that food must be cheap no matter the price of production must end.

One would have to be completely insane to get into vegetables in anywhere in Europe now. You are on a one way squeeze

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944075#Comment_118944075

pretty sure sh*t runs off our fields here and pollutes our rivers too, I've seen plenty of examples in the papers, and our workers rights are hardly great here, remember all the abbotoir scandals during COVID, I wonder if even one Irish person does any of those awful jobs these days

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944351#Comment_118944351

No, it's far from perfect but the effort is made and people are scared of being caught polluting, the penalties are very severe.

No one gave a toss in the Netherlands, including the Govt and those appointed to give a toss.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944014#Comment_118944014

It’s realist and not even necessary. You do need to have a managed national reserve, sufficient to allow the country to survive for six months with receiving any imports. And you need bomb shelters to allow the population to survive to consume the reserve. Irish houses don’t even have cellars, so where are people supposed to go? If you don’t survive the blast or the fallout you won’t need food.

Here in Switzerland, previous generations learned the lessons from two world wars and mandated a national food reserve of 3 to 6 months depending on the product (even toilet rolls for 9m people for 6 months). They also have a seeds reserve so they could start growing stuff again if needed. And families are required to have sufficient stables at home to allow them to survive two weeks with needing to go shopping. I used to think this was OTT until COVID arrived and now the war.

Up to now, the main concern was a fall out from a power plant, either our own, or from one of the neighbors. With the UK proposing to. build more plants, I think Ireland needs to do a lot more to ensure it’s survival.

VillageIdiot71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944075#Comment_118944075

Gosh, if only Europe has a Common Agricultural Policy. And maybe a Single Market. And common food safety standards. And a Court with jurisdiction over all members states.

Chris_5339762

Many farmers here don't give a toss either - the local farmer puts slurry onto the field the day before heavy rain and it washes away. He then comes back after the rain and re-does the whole field.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945525#Comment_118945525

You might not be aware of this but the EU does, you obviously are unaware of the difference in enforcement and standards that exist within

VillageIdiot71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945596#Comment_118945596

What I'm aware of is the corny lines that some come out with.

If there was one thing that Brexit revealed, it was just how successful the EU has been in creating a single market for food.