The war in Iran has exposed how “shockingly insecure” Ireland’s food security is, an expert in food production has argued. 

The country’s reliance on international markets for energy is clear and widely understood. 

However, despite farming playing such a central role in the national mindset, much of the food in Irish supermarkets is produced overseas. 

On Moncrieff, Grow It Yourself founder Mick Kelly said Irish agriculture is dominated by beef and dairy farmers. 

“Our former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar used to say we produced enough food on the island to feed 35 million people,” he recalled. 

“That’d be grand if all they were eating was beef and dairy. Effectively, that’s the way our agriculture system is set up. 

“About 90% of the food we produce is exported and that’s mainly beef and dairy.

“On the other side with vegetables and fruit, we’re nearly importing 80% of the veg and fruit we produce.”

A farmer walking behind a herd of cows on a narrow country road on Valentia Island in County Kerry. Picture by: Alamy.com. 

Earlier this week, Hughes Agriculture & Farming Limited announced that the company faced liquidation. 

The owner is one of Ireland’s largest producers of carrots and Mr Kelly described it as “very depressing” news. 

“That’s indicative of the much broader picture where we had about 600 commercial vegetable growers back around the year 2000,” he added. 

“We now have 73 officially, as of today. 

“So, our indigenous veg sector is collapsing under our noses and very few people talk about it.” 

Mr Kelly continued that Ireland has a “fantastic” climate for vegetable growing and that Irish farmers can “grow pretty much everything here”. 

However, he warned that the country’s agricultural model makes arable farming increasingly difficult. 

“First of all, their input costs, like every small business, have gone through the roof,” he explained. 

“The labour costs and the energy costs, the cost of fertiliser, all that has gone up as well because of the war in Ukraine.” 

A shopping basket in a supermarket. Picture by: PA Wire/PA Images.

Another factor, he argued, is that vegetables are “too cheap in the supermarket”. 

“About 20 years ago, we started to see really aggressive price promotions around vegetables, particularly at Christmas,” he said. 

“People might remember the 49 cent Brussels sprouts and carrots and things. They were designed just to get you into the store to do your Christmas shop.

“Then they became a semi-permanent and now almost a permanent feature of our retail environment, where veg are actually, in real terms, cheaper than they were 20 years ago.”

As a result, Ireland is now a net importer of vegetables and Mr Kelly fears the country is now “shockingly unsecure” from the perspective of food security. 

“About a third of the fertiliser in the world goes through the Straits of Hormuz,” he said. 

“We've seen the impact of first COVID, then the droughts and floods around Europe, conflicts like this, climate change events really expose just how vulnerable we are, I think.”

Main image: A child eating broccoli at the dinner table. Picture by: Alamy