IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tcd/tcduee/200118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Important is Agriculture and the AgriFood Sector in Ireland?

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Matthews

Abstract

Conventional estimates of the economic contribution of agriculture and the agri-food sector suggest that the overall sector still accounts for around 10% of total employment, GNP and exports, even after the structural changes brought about by the Celtic Tiger economy in the 1990s. These estimates, however, conceal the extent to which primary agriculture, in particular, is now dependent on public policy transfers. This article undertakes a statistical deconstruction of agriculture's contribution to the Irish economy to highlight its dependence on subsidies. It goes on to query the sustainability of these subsidies to commercial agriculture in the light of WTO agricultural negotiations and EU enlargement and argues that more vigorous steps are now needed to prepare a more competitive agriculture which would be viable at world market prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Matthews, 2001. "How Important is Agriculture and the AgriFood Sector in Ireland?," Trinity Economics Papers 200118, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tcd:tcduee:200118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/TEP/2001_papers/tepno18AM21.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pretty, J. N. & Brett, C. & Gee, D. & Hine, R. E. & Mason, C. F. & Morison, J. I. L. & Raven, H. & Rayment, M. D. & van der Bijl, G., 2000. "An assessment of the total external costs of UK agriculture," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 113-136, August.
    2. Alan Matthews, 2001. "Has agricultural policy responded to the Rio challenge?," Trinity Economics Papers 200114, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jongeneel, Roel & Polman, Nico & van der Ham, Corinda, 2014. "Costs and benefits associated with the externalities generated by Dutch agriculture," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182705, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Eric Tollens, 2004. "Biodiversity versus transgenic sugar beet: the one euro question," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 31(1), pages 1-18, March.
    3. Thomas Vendryes, 2014. "Peasants Against Private Property Rights: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 971-995, December.
    4. Jules Pretty, 1999. "Can Sustainable Agriculture Feed Africa? New Evidence on Progress, Processes and Impacts," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 253-274, September.
    5. Jónsson, Jón Örvar G. & Davíðsdóttir, Brynhildur & Nikolaidis, Nikolaos P. & Giannakis, Georgios V., 2019. "Tools for Sustainable Soil Management: Soil Ecosystem Services, EROI and Economic Analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 109-119.
    6. Adrian Sadłowski & Wioletta Wrzaszcz & Katarzyna Smędzik-Ambroży & Anna Matras-Bolibok & Anna Budzyńska & Marek Angowski & Stefan Mann, 2021. "Direct Payments and Sustainable Agricultural Development—The Example of Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-20, November.
    7. Kovacevic, Vujadin & Wesseler, Justus, 2010. "Cost-effectiveness analysis of algae energy production in the EU," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 5749-5757, October.
    8. Vandermeulen, V. & Van Huylenbroeck, G., 2008. "Designing trans-disciplinary research to support policy formulation for sustainable agricultural development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 352-361, October.
    9. Tait, Peter R. & Cullen, Ross, 2006. "Some External Costs of Dairy Farming in Canterbury," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 109595, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    10. Lv, Yao & Gu, Shu-zhong & Guo, Dong-mei, 2010. "Valuing environmental externalities from rice-wheat farming in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1436-1442, May.
    11. Gregor Devine & Michael Furlong, 2007. "Insecticide use: Contexts and ecological consequences," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 24(3), pages 281-306, September.
    12. Chiara M. Travisi & Peter Nijkamp, 2009. "Managing environmental risk in agriculture: a systematic perspective on the potential of quantitative policy-oriented risk valuation," International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 11(1/2/3), pages 27-46.
    13. Wei, Yongping & White, Robert & Hu, Kelin & Willett, Ian, 2010. "Valuing the environmental externalities of oasis farming in Left Banner, Alxa, China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2151-2157, September.
    14. Centner, Terence J. & Brewer, Brady & Leal, Isaac, 2018. "Reducing damages from sulfoxaflor use through mitigation measures to increase the protection of pollinator species," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 70-76.
    15. Järnberg, Linn & Enfors Kautsky, Elin & Dagerskog, Linus & Olsson, Per, 2018. "Green niche actors navigating an opaque opportunity context: Prospects for a sustainable transformation of Ethiopian agriculture," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 409-421.
    16. Ragona, Maddalena & Mazzocchi, Mario, 2008. "Measuring the Impacts of Food Safety Regulations: A Methodological Review," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 43864, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Pearce, David & Koundouri, Phoebe, 2003. "Diffuse Pollution and the Role of Agriculture," MPRA Paper 38443, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Charné Viljoen & Janke van der Colf & Pieter Andreas Swanepoel, 2020. "Benefits Are Limited with High Nitrogen Fertiliser Rates in Kikuyu-Ryegrass Pasture Systems," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-20, May.
    19. Leah Grout & Simon Hales & Nigel French & Michael G. Baker, 2018. "A Review of Methods for Assessing the Environmental Health Impacts of an Agricultural System," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-27, June.
    20. Bossio, Deborah & Noble, Andrew D. & Aloysius, Noel & Pretty, J. & Penning de Vries, F., 2008. "Ecosystem benefits of \u2018bright\u2019 spots," IWMI Books, Reports H041603, International Water Management Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q10 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - General
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tcd:tcduee:200118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Colette Angelov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detcdie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.