Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

260 Chapter 10: Environment and Agriculture Food Vision 2030 In 2021, DAFM published a new 10-year strategy for the agri-food industry called Food Vision 2030 (DAFM, 2021a). The strategy aims to adopt an integrated food systems approach to establish Ireland as a world leader in sustainable food systems by 2030. The four pillars of the strategy consider climate, resilience, food safety and innovation (Figure 10.9). The strategy has the objective of achieving a climate-neutral food system by 2050, with verifiable progress achieved by 2030, encompassing emissions, biodiversity and water quality, as well as a range of other targets for forestry, fisheries, organic farming and food waste. The monitoring and implementation process of Food Vision 2030 is key to ensuring delivery of the strategy and is a key part of implementing measures to improve water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, ammonia emissions and biodiversity. Tracking and frequent reporting on progress will be critical for building confidence and for enabling adaptive management approaches should adequate progress not be made. Figure 10.9  Food Vision 2030: Four missions Source: DAFM, 2021a The National Biodiversity Action Plan The fourth National Biodiversity Action Plan was published in 2024 and is a whole-of-government, whole-of-society plan to conserve and restore biodiversity. The plan recognises that, through the ecosystem services it provides, biodiversity underpins the sustainability and productivity of the agricultural, forestry and fisheries sectors, as well as the many businesses and industries that depend on the natural environment or on natural raw materials. The plan includes a number of targets relevant to agriculture, with associated actions to deliver the outcomes, and indicators for monitoring progress. Some examples of the relevant actions and their targets include: ■ Incentivising habitat creation and maintenance on farm through the CAP Strategic Plan 2022–2027 and the associated rural development plan. Relevant schemes include the results-based payment agri- environmental scheme (ACRES) and associated farm sustainability plans; Farming for Nature initiatives; and initiatives in Northern Ireland through the Shared Island Fund. The targets include optimising opportunities under agriculture and rural development, forestry and other relevant policies to benefit biodiversity by 2027 and having at least 4% of agricultural land with biodiversity-rich landscape features by 2030. ■ Supporting farmers’ transition to organic farming, with the aim of increasing the land area under organic farming to 10% by 2030. ■ Implementing existing and new measures to reduce chemical pesticide use, with the aim of reducing the use and risk of pesticides by 50% by 2030. ■ Having multiple institutions working together to develop measures and support tools to maintain and enhance biodiversity and the ecosystem services associated with agro-ecology systems, including high nature value farming and farmland, by 2027.