Rebuilding Ireland's capacity to feed itself
GIY welcomes the new Horticulture Grower–Retail Charter and the commitment by Aldi, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, SuperValu/Centra and Tesco to its principles.
For too long, Ireland has treated horticulture primarily as a commercial sector rather than as essential national infrastructure. The ability to grow fruit and vegetables on this island is fundamental to our health, our environment and our food security.
Ireland is rightly proud of being a major food-producing nation. But that headline disguises a serious vulnerability: we export large quantities of dairy and meat while depending heavily on imports for many of the foods that should form an increasing part of a healthy diet.
At GIY, we describe food empathy as understanding the consequences of our food choices — for our own health, for the people who produce our food and for the planet. Supporting Irish growers is therefore not simply about "buying local". It is about maintaining the people, land, knowledge, heritage and infrastructure required to feed ourselves.
What GIY welcomes
We strongly support the five principles of the Charter.
Fair and consistent engagement with growers recognises the significant imbalance in bargaining power between individual growers and major retailers.
Long-term relationships rather than short-term tendering may be particularly important. A grower cannot make decisions about land, machinery, glasshouses, irrigation, labour or succession on the basis of a one-year contract. Moving towards multi-year supply arrangements gives growers the confidence to invest and gives the country greater certainty about future production.
Prices that reflect the sustainable cost of growing in Ireland are fundamental. Cheap food is not really cheap if the price ultimately results in growers leaving the sector. The cost of maintaining domestic food-production capacity has to be recognised somewhere in the food system.
We also welcome the commitment to clearly and honestly promote Irish produce. Consumers who want to support Irish growers should be able to identify Irish produce easily and confidently.
Finally, reducing food loss and waste is strongly aligned with GIY's food-empathy principles. Retail specifications and purchasing practices should allow as much edible food as possible to reach people rather than being lost because it fails cosmetic standards.
What is missing
The biggest weakness is that the Charter is voluntary. The real test will therefore not be whether retailers sign it, but whether conditions actually improve for growers. We would like to see transparent annual reporting against the Charter: changes in grower numbers, acreage, Irish market share, average contract length and whether grower returns are keeping pace with the cost of production.
If voluntary measures do not deliver measurable improvements, Government should be prepared to strengthen the powers of the Agri-Food Regulator.
But there is a larger issue which the Charter cannot solve on its own.
1. Food security needs to have an explicit target
Ireland needs to decide what proportion of the fruit and vegetables that can reasonably be grown here we want to produce ourselves. The objective should not be complete self-sufficiency or the elimination of imports. Imports give consumers variety and are an important part of a resilient food system.
But there is a major difference between importing bananas and oranges that cannot realistically be produced here and becoming dependent on imports for onions, carrots, brassicas, potatoes, salads and other crops that Ireland is capable of producing.
Government should establish national targets for increasing domestic production of key horticultural crops as part of a wider National Food Security Strategy.
2. We need more growers, not simply to protect those who remain
The collapse in grower numbers should be treated as a strategic warning. A successful policy cannot simply slow the rate at which existing growers leave. Ireland needs to make horticulture sufficiently attractive that young people can see a viable future in growing food. That means access to land, training, capital, protected cropping, irrigation, technology and routes to market, alongside a realistic prospect of earning a decent living which can be supported by the introduction of a basic income for growers.
The number of active commercial growers should become a national food-security KPI.
3. Consumers need to be part of the solution
The Charter largely concerns the relationship between retailers and growers. But the third part of that relationship is the consumer. For decades we have been trained to regard low food prices, perfect appearance and permanent availability as normal.
We need a national public-awareness effort explaining why supporting Irish horticulture matters — not just economically, but for health, climate resilience, rural livelihoods and food security.
Schools have an important role here too. Children should understand how food is grown, what grows in Ireland and when it grows. Building food literacy is part of building long-term food security – GIY delivers this through our GROW at School programme.
5. Sustainability needs to mean more than economic sustainability
The Charter rightly focuses on the economic sustainability of growers, but GIY would broaden the definition. Ireland should be supporting a horticultural sector that builds healthy living soils, biodiversity and climate resilience, reduces unnecessary chemical inputs and protects water and ecosystems. We should particularly encourage organic, regenerative and other nature-positive production systems while ensuring that the transition is economically viable for growers.
GIY's position summary
The Grower-Retail Charter is a welcome and overdue recognition of something fundamental. We cannot have food security without growers, and we cannot have growers without viable businesses.
However Ireland should go further. We need to start treating domestic fruit and vegetable production as strategically important national infrastructure. That means fair prices and long-term contracts, while also increasing domestic production, attracting a new generation of growers, investing in climate-resilient horticulture, supporting environmentally positive production and helping consumers reconnect with Irish seasonal food.
