Today, beef and milk production are the two most important farming sectors in Ireland, accounting for around 60% of agricultural output. The scale of our farming output relative to our domestic population of 4m people mean that Ireland exports some 90% of its net beef output, making Ireland the largest beef exporter in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Similarly, 85% of dairy output is exported.
The value of exports of Irish food and drink was almost €9 billion in 2011. This equates to the Republic of Ireland’s farmers producing enough food for an estimated 36 million people. There are ambitious plans in place to expand that to 50m people by 2020 under the Government led Food Harvest 2020 strategy