merrion street

And launches strategic research agendas for food and agricultural production

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, TD, today announced grant awards of approximately €10 million for research projects being undertaken, on a collaborative basis, by researchers from 13 institutions across the island of Ireland. This funding is vital to the future development and growth of these industries which are at present providing a leading example of the success of Irish exports and are a key part of the Government blue print for this industry, Food Harvest 2020.

Speaking at an event in the Backweston Laboratory Campus near Celbridge, Co. Kildare, the Minister said the awards would "help to underpin the sector by putting valuable expertise, capacity and capability at the disposal of industry while also feeding the pipeline for future innovation and commercialisation in the sector". The Minister added that the "awards cover a broad spectrum of research themes including a Dairy Research Programme focused on cheese and infant formula; a Gaseous Emissions and Land Use Network to ensure a coordinated research effort on Greenhouse Gas mitigation in agriculture; and a programme on Forest Genetic Resources focusing on tree improvement efforts in both broadleaf and conifer species". Full details of these awards are set out in Appendix 1.

The Minister also formally launched two new documents: ‘Food Research Ireland – meeting the needs of Ireland’s food sector through research and innovation’ and These were prepared over the last 12 to 18 months by Expert Advisory Groups operated by the Department and constitute strategic research agendas for food and agricultural production respectively. They identify a number of key investment areas that will help guide the content of future Calls by the Department and indeed other funding agencies. The Minister said "I would like to commend both Advisory Groups for all their efforts and especially thank Dan Browne who chaired the Food Group and Matt Dempsey who chaired the Agricultural Production Group for overseeing this process and ensuring delivery of these impressive documents. I believe their completion is very timely as it not only constitutes delivery of some Food Harvest 2020 key actions but also enables us to make an early start on implementing some of the priorities likely to emerge under the National Research Prioritisation Exercise".

Acknowledging that the main focus of the morning event had been on launching Food Research Ireland and SSAPRI, the Minister said he was "acutely aware that without the provision of adequate funding these documents will have no impact on our sector". He then added that he was "delighted to announce that the Department will soon be launching a new Call for Proposals that will draw on elements of both documents as well as containing a number of forest research topics, and urged the research community to "submit quality applications that make the best possible use of this funding thereby contributing further to achieving the Food Harvest 2020 targets".

Minister Coveney went on to congratulate all those involved in recent successes under Call 5 of the ‘Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology’ Theme area of the EU 7^th Framework Programme he concluded by urging "researchers and SME’s alike to up their game and more aggressively pursue the increased funding opportunities that exist in the remaining years of FP7 and under its successor, Horizon 2020, which is likely to be much better resourced".

‘Stimulating Sustainable Agricultural Production through Research & Innovation’ (SSAPRI).