This page contains a set of links to information sources and papers mainly on the web, with a particular focus on future scenarios and challenges facing the Irish agri-food sector
Prepared by Alan Matthews (Trinity College Dublin)
See also http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/amtthews/FoodPolicy/FoodHomePage.htm
Last updated: 9 October 2007
The Irish Department of Agriculture and Food website (and especially its section Publications) is a primary source. See, in particular, the Department's Annual Report as well as the Annual Review and Outlook (previous years are also available). It also produces a very useful Compendium of Agricultural Statistics updated every two years containing Excel files of the main agricultural statistics, in many cases going back to 1973.
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food holds regular debates on agri-food and rural development issues and these transcripts are available.
Teagasc is the state-funded Irish Agricultural and Food Development Authority. Its Rural Economy Research Centre provides analyses of economic and social trends in Irish farming and rural development, and publishes a working paper series. The Centre also produces the annual National Farm Survey which provides the Irish input into the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN).
See also my lecture notes for a course on the Economics of Food Markets which provide background information on EU and Irish agricultural policy.
By far the best source for short-term commentary is the Department of Agriculture and Food's Annual Review and Outlook (previous years are also available.
An Bord Bia (Irish Food Board) reports are good source of information with a particular focus on trade and exports.
For a rather sycophantic appraisal of the sector, see Jim Power's report 'The Importance of the Agri-Food Sector in the Future Development of the Irish Economy' prepared for Agri-Aware in 2007.
For a recent review of policy issues in Irish agriculture, see Report of the Agri-Vision 2015 Committee, 2004, Department of Agriculture and Food. The Department of Agriculture and Food subsequently published an Agrivision 2015 Action Plan in 2006 setting out its proposals on implementation. A number of research institutes, including NUI Maynooth, UCD and Teagasc, produced a Rural Ireland 2005 Foresight Perspectives report in 2005 which contains both a synthesis report and a number of background papers on likely trends to 2025 in the Irish agri-food sector. A recent Teagasc working paper provides a critical review of the recent productivity performance of Irish agriculture.
Dixon, J.and Matthews, A. 2006, Impact of the 2003 Mid-Term Review of the Common Agricultural Policy, ESRI Quarterly Economic Commentary Spring 2006, pp. 36-53.
FAPRI Ireland, 2006, World Agricultural Trade Reform and the WTO Doha Development Round: Analysis of the Impact on EU and Irish Agriculture, Teagasc.
FAPRI Ireland, 2007, CAP Health Check Analysis: Impact of EU Milk Quota Expansion, Teagasc
Hennessy, T., 2004, Farm Level Adjustment in Ireland Following Decoupling, Paper to the Agricultural Economics Society Conference, 2004.
Decoupling Implementation in Ireland. See Department of Agriculture and Food Agri Payments web page.
FAPRI-Ireland partnership, 2003, The Luxembourg CAP Reform Agreement: Analysis of the Impact on EU and Irish Agriculture, Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre. There is an executive summary. The conclusions were also presented at a meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association under the title 'CAP Reform and the WTO: Potential Impacts on EU Agriculture' in 2004.
T. Hennessy and T. Rehman, 2006, Modelling the Impact of Decoupling on Structural Change in the Farming Sector: integrating econometric and optimisation models, Working Paper 06/01, Teagasc.
S. Shrestha, T. Hennessy and S. Hynes, The Effect of Decoupling on Farming in Ireland: A Regional Analysis, Working Paper 06/11, Teagasc.
Other relevant Teagasc working papers quantifying the impact of decoupling on Irish agriculture can be downloaded from the RERC working paper website.
Irish rural development policy is set out in the 1999 White Paper on Rural Development. Responsibility for rural development is shared between the Department of Agriculture and Food and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltachta Affairs. The Department of Agriculture and Food is responsible for rural development measures financed under the CAP. Its CAP Rural Development web page provides access to recent policy documents and its annual reports (which can be downloaded from its publications web page) summarise implementation issues from year to year. The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has responsibility for non-CAP rural development spending and its rural development webpage also provides a good introduction to recent policy documents. Its annual reports (available for the period since 2002) have a section on implementation of the rural development policy measures for which it is responsible. In addition, the National Spatial Strategy 2002-2020 sets out a balanced regional development strategy for the country as a whole, while the regional dimension of the National Development Plan 2007-2013 announed in January 2007 as set out in its horizontal chapter on balanced regional development is aligned with the National Spatial Strategy.
CAP rural development spending has been programmed in a series of operational programmes since the EU Structural Funds were reformed in the late 1980s. For example, the Agriculture, Rural Development and Forestry Operational Programme (1994-1999) operated in the 1994-99 period. The most recent CAP Rural Development Plan 2000-2006 (note: large file) has just been completed (a shorter summary is also available). There were rural development measures in both of the regional operational programmes - that for the Border, Midland and Western Operational Programme and the Southern and Eastern Region Operational Programme.
Evaluations of these operational programmes are included in the general ESRI evaluations of Ireland's Community Support Frameworks. See, for example,
Morgenroth, E. and Fitz Gerald, J. eds. 2006, Ex-ante Evaluation of the Investment Priorities for the National Development Plan (2007-2013), Policy Research Series 59, Dublin, ESRI.
Fitz Gerald, J., McCarthy, C., Morgenroth, E., O'Connell, P., eds., 2003, The Mid-Term Evaluation of the National Development Plan and Community Support Framework for Ireland, 2000 to 2006: Final Report to the Department of Finance, Policy Research Series 50, Dublin, ESRI.
Fitzgerald, J. 1999, 'Impact of NDP on the Economy' Ex Ante Evaluation of the National Development Plan, 2000-2006, Dublin, Stationery Office.
Honahan, P. ed., 1997, EU Structural Funds in Ireland: A Mid-Term Evaluation of the CSF 1994-99, Policy Research Series 31, Dublin, ESRI.
Fitzgerald, J. and Keegan, O. eds., 1993. The Community Support Framework 1989-1993: Evaluation and Recommendations for the 1994-1997 Framework - Report prepared for the Department of Finance in association with DKM Economic Consultants, G. Boyle, Maynooth College, B. Kearney and A. Conway, Dublin, ESRI.
The Department of Agriculture and Food has completed its CAP Rural Development Plan setting out the Irish strategy for rural development in the 2007-2013 period and which has been approved by the EU for funding under the CAP Pillar 2. The agreed Rural Development Strategy and the Rural Development Programme can now be consulted. There is also a link to an ex ante evaluation of the rural development programme undertaken by AFCon Management Consultants and Jim Dorgan Associates. This plan is a component of the National Development Plan 2007-2013 as discussed in the 'Development of the Rural Economy' chapter in that Plan. Two other programmes in the Plan, Rural Social and Economic Development and Gaeltacht and Islands Development, are also directly relevant to rural development.
A feature of rural development efforts has been local partnerships, supported particularly the LEADER programme. Descriptions and evaluations of the Leader II programme (which ran from 1994-99) and the Leader+ programme (which ran from 2000-2006). See also Moseley, M., Cherett, T. and Cawley, M., 2001. Local partnerships for rural development: Ireland's experience in context, Irish Geography 34, 2, 176-193.
Carroll, D., 2004, Implementation of Government's Rural Development Policy, Paper to the Teagasc Rural Development Conference 2004.
Crowley, C., Meredith, D. and Walsh, J. Population And Agricultural Change In Rural Ireland, 1991 To 2002, Paper to the Teagasc Rural Development Conference 2004.
For discussion of agriculture's impact on the environment, consult Environment Protection Agency, 2004, Agriculture and Forestry, Chapter 7 in Ireland's Environment 2004: The State of the Environment, Wexford. (also the Chapter 4 on water quality).
Alan Matthews, Agriculture, Rural Development and Food Safety, Chapter 9 in O'Hagan, John and Newman, Carol, The Economy of Ireland: National & Sectoral Policy Issues, 9th Edition, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2005, pp. 215-242.
Matthews, A., 2001, How important is agriculture and the agri-food sector in Ireland? Irish Banking Review, Winter 2001, pp. 28-40.
For bibliography and Irish government publications. See list in the Bibliography in Daly 2002 below
Turner, M. 1996, After the Famine: Irish Agriculture 1850-1914, Cambridge.
Bailie, I. and Sheehy, S., 1971, Irish agriculture in a changing world.
Gillmor D., 1977, Agriculture in the Republic of Ireland
Drudy, P.J. 1982 Ireland: land, politics and people. Cambridge University Press.
Kennendy, K., Giblin, T. and McHugh, D., The economic development of Ireland in the Twentieth Century.
Crotty, R., 1966, Irish Agricultural Production: Its Volume and Structure, Cork University Press.
Rouse, Paul, 2000, Ireland's Own Soil: Government and Agriculture in Ireland, 1945 to 1965, Dublin, Irish Farmers' Journal
Daly, M. 2002, The First Department: A History of the Department of Agriculture, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration.
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