Summary of ideas submitted in the Agriculture and Food category…

• Improve the traceability of Irish food brands.
• For chefs and bakers to come to local secondary schools and be paired with catering students who in turn could supply local restaurants and cafes.
• Exploit the sea food Industry and become a world leader in providing sea food.
• Scheme to encourage people to buy locally sourced food.
• Have FAS provide training for the running of allotments.
• Set up all island organic farm policy to meet organic production needs.
• Encourage a return to self sufficiency in farming.
• Make sure that Irish companies are not being discriminated against on their ability to deliver on major contracts to the public sector.
• When conifer trees are being cut down the branches could be recycled for chipboard, going towards meeting our energy needs.
• Encourage people to return to making products at home and if successful to make a business of it and increase exports.
• Have campaign showing how much of each vitamin, sugar etc is good for you, increase legal requirements of labelling on foods.
• Enforce the law regarding it being illegal to drive a power-drive tractor that is not covered.
• Legalise industrial hemp production.
• Eliminate small farms that use chemicals.
• Unused land owned county councils should be put to use as allotments where members can grow vegetables paying a low rent.
• Irish manufacturers should label their products with the county or province of origin. This “local flagging” can be done as a voluntary thing, rather than a co-coordinated scheme which would contravene EU law.
• Establishment of cookery schools and mandatory annual skills courses for catering employees. This would create an ethos of standards of excellence within catering.
• To increase productivity: do away with all forms of set-aside including mountain destocking; go back to headage on the number of stock a farmer owns instead of the present system; support for the growing of fast growing biomass on marginal land in the west of Ireland, Kyoto fines should be avoided.
• Processing sea snails (welks) on land for the Asian market - build large steel tanks in fishing areas, and farm them from the tanks.
• To utilise the unemployed (who have an interest in growing their own fruit and vegetables) to work together on allotments and do a training course on food production techniques.
• Leader groups should be funded by FAS and Enterprise Ireland.
• If tax incentives similar to those for longer term land leases were available this would release more land onto the market to be taken (rented) and used by young efficient farmers who would make full use our farmland.
• Grow orchids and exotic plants for export in unused mushroom tunnels.
• This person is offering their land as allotments for people to teach others how to grow vegetables and then sell them locally.
• Allow family members to work in family business outside of employment legislation instead of having to register as an employer. Allow the employee to be registered under a special PRSI rate for such situations.
• There should be emphasis on marketing and packaging to increase sales of Irish products.
• Investment should be made available for the development of a centre for research and experimentation on sgro forestry. There should be a proposal for a number of satellite agro forestry projects around the country.
• Transform the Irish agriculture industry to be exclusively organic.
• The land that Anglo Irish has on its books to be released and utilised as allotments.
• Transform the Irish agriculture industry to be exclusively organic.
• Supermarkets should add a little bit of extra flare to the display of Irish produced foods and products to make it easier to find.
• Hold local food fairs to give local business an opportunity to display their excellent wares.
• For government departments and canteens to purchase only Irish produce.
• Progressively transform the Irish agriculture industry to be exclusively organic.
• Create large polytunnels, big enough to cover fields so that growing environments can be controlled and grow on a scale that makes economic sense and guarantee supply.