Thomas Murray

Thomas Murray, Agronomist, Offaly

Thomas Murray from Banagher County Offaly is an Agronomist with O’Shea Farms in County Kilkenny. As part of his Nuffield Scholarship, Thomas will investigate decision-making tools for the future of potato and vegetable production in Ireland. Thomas graduated from Waterford Institute of Technology with a Bachelors of Agricultural Science in 2016 and completed a Diploma in Leadership for the Agri-Food sector in 2021 from UCC. Thomas currently advises and manages Potato and Carrot growers on land selection, seed procurement, agronomy, and storage management. Thomas plans to travel to the USA, Canada, Northern Europe, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand.

Thomas’ Nuffield report is ‘The future of potato and vegetable production in Ireland: what next?’

Executive Summary:

Profitability and Sustainability for the potato and carrot sector in Ireland has never been more important. The way we farm and produce potatoes and carrots has changed over the past decade and will also be very different in the next decade and the future. The industry faces many challenges with primary producer decline, lack of independent research to drive the industry forward into the next generation of farming, below cost selling and competitive imports.

The standard of both quality and sustainability of potato and carrot production is ever rising. Growers must manage risk on daily bases from disease to weather and storage to markets. As a country we are lacking in fact-based research on how we can minimize risk from weeds, pests and weather-related events that have a big impact on these commercial crops. The sector has become very reliant on pesticides as they were cost effective and solved the issue. Food vision 2030 aims for Ireland to become a world leader in sustainable food system, this will be very difficult with lack of research, below cost production coupled with cheap imports.

This study looks at how the potato and carrot industry can be efficient, profitable, and ultimately sustainable going forward. It will look at three key areas of production, markets and consumption. Sustainable production will be focused on in depth however production is limited if we don’t have markets and consumption of these products.

Surprisingly with a country that is synonymous with potatoes and vegetables the amount of imported potato and vegetable products on Irish shelves is astonishing. Ireland imports some 80,000 tons of fresh potatoes per annum. Import substitution of these products is a low hanging fruit for the industry from both a risk mitigation to growers and sustainability for the industry with home grown produce. The largest imports are salad potatoes and chipping potatoes followed by Maris piper and general purpose whites. All these crops can be grown in Ireland with some growers doing an excellent job, the risk involved is far greater if the correct knowledge and advice is not on hand for the growers along with some risk sharing in the long supply chain. The dairy industry and dairy co-operatives in Ireland have become the benchmark for knowledge and data sharing between research, breeding, production, and markets. Primary producers view reports of their yearly production figures and compare them to the top 10% and the average primary producer to benchmark themselves.

Markets available to fresh produce are direct to consumers and along with wholesale to hospitality trade a split of 80% loose / 20% prepared. The direct-to-consumer markets tend to be washed product in 500gram to 10kg packs for potatoes and carrots with the hospitality now nearly being fully prepared product. Convenience is becoming more and more frequent with food products however the fresh produce market has been very slow to the races with new product development.

The objectives of the study led the author to travel to the USA, Canda, Netherlands, UK and Israel to study, meet and visit world leading sustainable primary producers, business and leaders in the fresh produce market.

The future of potato and vegetable production in Ireland: What next?