Sir, – Cian O’Connell’s article on the Irish horticultural sector notes that a substantial portion of fruit and vegetable imports cannot be produced in Ireland due to our climate (“Why doesn’t Ireland grow more veg”, News, October 10th).
While true for bananas and citrus fruit, my analysis of CSO trade data shows that eight of the 15 crops with the highest import volume could be produced domestically. These include apples, onions, cabbages and brassicas, carrots and other root vegetables.
While economic viability is a challenge for growers, it is also shaped by agricultural policy and public investment. Substantial public support is accepted for the economic sustainability of other agricultural sectors, yet the economic difficulties facing horticulture often appear to be treated as simply an inevitable barrier to domestic production.
The future direction of the Irish horticulture sector is not just a function of what we can produce and how much of it, it is also an outcome of policy: which crops and production systems do we choose to promote and support, and therefore who can make a viable living from growing them. – Yours, etc,
RM Block
ISOBEL STANLEY,
PhD researcher in food systems policy,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – I remember learning, in my first geography lessons in national school in the 1960s, how agriculture was carried on in this country.
In the sunny southeast they grew grain. In the Golden Vale it was milk and dairy products. In the midlands it was beef and the drumlins of Cavan and Monaghan produced the pigs and poultry. As for the rest of the country, west of the Shannon it was subsistence farming. The food producers in the different areas of the country used their land for what it could do best.
I went to the supermarket recently to buy some fruit. The first three packets I picked up came from Portugal, Poland and Peru. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD ALLEN,
Cummeen,
Sligo.
