ICSA president Dermot Kelleher has said that the tremendous performance of food and drink exports for 2022 is a sobering lesson for the anti-livestock farming agenda and those politicians who want to lay waste to the farming sector in Ireland. "The 22% increase to a record €16.7 billion, which when combined with non-edible agri exports is about €18.7 billion, is first and foremost a tribute to the hard work of farm families in delivering for the Irish economy."

 "In 2022, farmers were confronted with huge increases in cost and a never-ending diatribe of negativity in the media. But farmers do what they always do in the face of adversity – they show up for work seven mornings a week. It is critical to understand that, unlike Foreign Direct Investment, the €18.7 billion of agri-food exports, delivers real money spread relatively equally across every county in Ireland and this money is retained in the Irish economy."

 "The interesting point is that much of this increase in value has been through better product price. This is a key lesson – farmers are only producing what consumers across Europe and further afield want to buy. It also demonstrates that food security is indeed an issue as other countries are encountering declining production of all types of food."

 "On a sectoral level, dairy exports increased 33%, without an increase in volume. By comparison, the beef and sheep sectors worked a lot harder to get lower increases. Beef exports were up 18% in value on the back of a 9% increase in volume and sheep exports were up 17% on the back of a 10% increase in volume. The overall value of meat exports at €4billion is really important to rural Ireland but it should be noted that the meat sector is also a contributor to the €3 billion of exports in the prepared consumer foods sector. 

 Overall, the results show that the meat sectors need to do better to match the excellent performance of the dairy sector in terms of price delivered to farmers. Beef and sheep farmers have really been hit by input costs increases which dairy farmers can carry better. This needs to be looked at again, in terms of policy and financial support."