Livestock an important part of our overall food system – Teagasc Director

The benefits of livestock inclusion in the overall food system were outlined by Professor Frank O Mara, Director of Teagasc, on the recent Signpost Series webinar titled: ‘Cultivating a sustainable future for Irish agriculture’.

Joining host Mark Gibson, Head of Outreach and Innovation at Teagasc, Professor O Mara said livestock are “critically important for converting forages and low quality by-product type feedstuffs from industry into human edible food”, thus filling a very important niche in our food ecosystem.

“If we didn’t have livestock, we couldn’t do that and huge parts of our country and huge parts of the world would not be available for food production,” Professor O Mara said.

Additionally, the Teagasc Director pointed to the circularity created in the overall food system by returning livestock manures to the soils from which their feed was produced, adding: “That relationship between plants and livestock is critical. We can’t have just animals or we can’t have just crops, we need the two and the big reason we need the two is that return of livestock manures back to crop producing areas, and that is hugely important for long term soil health.”

Along with the above, Professor O Mara pointed to the quality of products produced from livestock production systems, noting that approximately 30% of the global protein consumed is derived from livestock products.

“It’s not just that percentage,” Professor O Mara commented, “It’s the quality of that protein. It has a very good amino acid profile, so it’s very high quality protein, and livestock products or animal sourced foods also contain very high levels of some bioavailable minerals and other required nutrients, vitamins, fatty acids and that makes livestock products a really useful part of the diet of people at critical stages of their life.”

For the above outlined reasons, he said: “There is an incredibly important part for livestock to play in our overall food system and the challenge for us is how we can ensure that livestock are minimising the negative externalities while they contribute, or continue to make those really important contributions to our food system.”

Along with discussing the role of livestock, Professor O Mara provided an outlook for the Irish agricultural sector. After acknowledging the challenges faced by farmers over the past 12 months due to weather, regulatory and profitability influences, he said: “I think the fundamentals are pretty sound for Irish agriculture. We are very competitive in terms of what we produce and we need to be because we export. I think Irish food has a very good reputation abroad for safety, for quality and that stands to us in terms of our access into premium markets.

“When you take those factors into account, I think the prospects for Irish agriculture are good because food and the type of food we produce isn’t going out of fashion and we are good at producing it.”

However, Professor O Mara did point to some challenges, most notably feeding a growing world population in a sustainable manner, meeting agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and protecting water quality.

When posed the question on how agriculture is going to meet the task of feeding an expanded world population, Professor O Mara said: “I think people don’t fully realise the challenge that the global food system will have in terms of sustainably producing that extra food for the growing population.”

To achieve this, research and innovation are refocusing its efforts on identifying ways to maintain production while doing so in a more sustainable way through reduced fertiliser and pesticide usage, and other avenues; Irish farmers have reduced both inputs in recent years, while still continuing to maintain production.

In terms of agriculture’s requirement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2023, Professor O Mara outlined the role of Teagasc Marginal Abatement Cost Curve, which presents a pathway for farmers to achieve this target albeit at a “very high rate of adoption” and the further fine tuning of additional technologies through research.

 “The adoption of the measures in the MACC is what is going to allow agriculture to reach its target. Teagasc won’t deliver the MACC, it will be the 130,000 farmers adopting those measures, but we are there to support them,” Professor O Mara said.

The recently launched ‘Better Farming for Water – 8 Actions for Change’ campaign was also discussed. The aim of the ‘Better Farming for Water’ campaign is to support and accelerate the adoption of actions on all farms to improve all water bodies, where agriculture is a significant pressure, to Good or High Ecological Status.

Professor Frank O Mara’s full interview as part of the Signpost Series webinar is available to watch below: