This article is from page 51 of the 2007-09-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 51 JPG
UNIVERSITY College Dublin was the venue for the 58th Annual Meet- ing of the European Association for Animal Production held on Sunday, August 26 which was opened by the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, Mr John Browne, ID.
Addressing the more than 800 Eu- ropean delegates, the Minister stated that “investment in research is piv- otal in ensuring that we meet future challenges facing the agriculture and food sector”’.
He congratulated the Scientific Committee for capturing such a noteworthy theme as “Sustainable Animal Production – Meeting the
Challenges for Quality Food. Sus- tainability presents a challenge for all concerned.” The Minister continued: “A challenge for researchers to pro- vide the best science based knowl- edge for cost effective sustainable and animal welfare friendly animal production, a challenge for farmers to deliver quality produce at com- petitive prices in an environmentally sustainable way, and, most of all, a challenge to all involved along the whole food chain from the farm to the fork to have a unified approach to ensuring the highest food safety and quality standards are achieved.”
The minister told delegates that the Irish Government has greatly increased its funding for research in recent years. Last year Strategy
for Science Technology and Innova- tion, which will run until 2013, was launched. “This Strategy,’ he said, “sets out the roadmap whereby Ire- land can develop as a knowledge based economy, and it explicitly recognises that the development of a sustainable agriculture and food sec- tor and bio economy is vital to our national economic well-being.” The Strategy foresees a doubling of both research funding and in the number of PhD’s produced.
‘This 1s not a doubling for the sake of it,’ said the minister, “but rather a vision of building a capability among the best young people to fuel the knowledge economy.”
Continuing the minister said that the Department of Agriculture and
Food is the primary funding agency for agricultural and food research in Ireland.
It provides core funding to Teagasc, the National Institute for Research, Advice and Education in Agriculture and Food, as well as funding through competitive programmes for which Teagasc and the third level institutes compete. The minister pointed out that these programmes provide sig- nificant funding for research in the animal bio-sciences.
In conclusion, the Minister hoped that the delegates would not only get a flavour of what is happening in re- search in Ireland, but that they would also have an opportunity to capture some of the sights, sounds and tastes of Ireland during their stay.