PRESIDENT CATHERINE CONNOLLY has said that Ireland’s reliance on food imports requires “urgent attention” due to threats to food security such as conflict and extreme weather. 

Connolly made the comments while officially opening the 95th National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. This is her first time delivering the annual presidential address to open the event.

“Unfortunately, the Ploughing Championships this year take place against unprecedented global heating due to climate change, causing the extreme weather we see all around us,” Connolly said.

Connolly also said it is a “privilege” to return to the championships as president, and praised the event for how it has progressed over the past 95 years. 

During her speech, the President highlighted recent findings made by the Climate Advisory Council in its annual report.

Connolly’s comments come after a summer recorded as the hottest Ireland has seen across 127 years of weather records.

“No doubt, the heat and the drought has affected the lives and livelihoods of many of you here today,” Connolly said.

“[The Climate Advisory Council] said Ireland’s food supply and distribution is highly dependent on imports and vulnerable to a range of external disruptions and risks, including conflicts and the impacts of extreme weather on inputs and supply change,” she added.

Connolly also highlighted the decline in the number of domestic horticulture producers and local production, which she said increases the country’s vulnerability to external shocks.

“The number of commercial vegetable growers on the island of Ireland has fallen to fewer than 70, down from over 600 in the 1990s. Approximately 83% of all our fruit and vegetables consumed in Ireland are imported, and we also continue to export 90% of the food produced in this country,” she said.

“I think we all could agree that this requires urgent attention.”

The President said it was “crystal clear” that change must be made, and farmers must be “at the heart of the process”.

“It is urgent that we begin to take the transformative change needed to build a sustainable and food-secure future,” Connolly said.

“No longer is it possible to continue with unbalanced regional development, with business as usual if we’re going to seriously embrace the challenges posed by climate change, the normalisation of war, and both of which are inextricably linked,” she added.