Origin Green, Ireland’s food and drink sustainability programme, is centred on measurable difference, operating across the entire food supply chain and on a national scale. This month we interview Mick Houlihan, Bord Bia’s Senior Manager for Agriculture Sustainability.

What is your role within the Origin Green team?

As the Senior Manager for Agricultural Sustainability on the Origin Green team in Bord Bia, I work closely with a smaller team focused on the development of tools and initiatives to support farmers and industry in their sustainability efforts.

We also provide support to the wider Bord Bia organisation in their engagement with client companies and customers in markets around the world. The team is responsible for reviewing and analysing the data generated by the sustainable assurance schemes and developing reports that are sent to individual farmers participating in our schemes, as well as detailed reports for industry. We also play a role in representing Bord Bia on a number of sustainability platforms nationally and internationally.

How does your work benefit the Origin Green programme?

The role is essentially about deepening connections between Origin Green members and Bord Bia through collaboration and delivery of services. With the demands for proof points around sustainability increasing, there is a need to generate these proof points in new ways that don’t solely rely on sustainable assurance schemes. We are now in a position to work with specific groups of farmers or stakeholders that want to focus their sustainability efforts on particular aspects of their operations and create a framework that enables them to show their progress and quantify their impacts.

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As a result of these initiatives, we can also support the standard development process by testing new approaches to assessment, validating data collection processes and identifying opportunities for differentiation of Irish produce in the marketplace. Ultimately, we aim to identify and implement initiatives across the broad spectrum of sustainability indicators that strengthen the Origin Green programme and enhance the profile of its members.

How does the collaborative nature of the role benefit industry and Origin Green?

The Origin Green programme is powered by partnership. Collaboration with key stakeholders, in particular Teagasc and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) is key in ensuring there is a unified approach and consistent messaging in relation to the actions required to meet Ireland’s Climate Action Plan targets. The pooling of resources, with each stakeholder playing to their strengths to support the wide range of initiatives across the agri-food sector is the key to the success of these initiatives.

What projects have you been working on recently?

We are currently reviewing the results of an animal welfare assessment pilot, and there is ongoing work in relation to the further development of the farmer eLearning Hub. The hub is an online learning platform that Bord Bia launched in October to provide guidance on sustainability and animal welfare to farmers. The optional modules have been developed with industry experts, including Teagasc, to simplify the actions that farmers can take to become more environmentally and economically sustainable.

We are also working closely with industry stakeholders in relation to a sustainability planning tool for farmers and farm advisors, and a tool that will allow for the analysis of medicine use on farms.

We are engaging with the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative platform in the development of an internationally recognised assessment framework for regenerative agriculture, and aim to bring the perspective of grass-based production systems to the process.

TO FIND OUT MORE - Visit Origin Green www.origingreen.ie