AQW 49195/11-16


Ms Claire Sugden
Independent
East Londonderry


Tabled Date: 28/09/2015
Answered On Date: 04/11/2015
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment how employment and sales within the Agri-Food sector have increased since the launch of the Agri-Food Strategy in 2013; and whether employment and sales figures are on track to meet targets.


Answer:
The Agri-Food Strategy Board’s report, “Going for Growth” was launched on 16th May 2013, and set the following industry targets for sales and employment in the Agri-food sector. By 2020:
Grow sales by 60% to over £7billion;
Grow employment by 15% to over 115,000;
Grow sales outside NI by 75% to £4.5billion.
DARD annually publish statistics on the “size and performance of the NI food and drinks processing sector”, which are publically available to download from http://www.dardni.gov.uk/size-and-performance-of-the-ni-food-and-drinks-processing-sector.htm
The latest available figures relate to 2013, with provisional estimates for 2014:
Turnover was £4.772billion in 2014, an increase of 5.8% on 2013.
External Sales were £3.304billion in 2013, an increase of 11.1% on 2012.
In terms of employment, the Agri-Food Strategy Board’s baseline assessment of employment of 100,000 in 2010 is composed of:
Total Agricultural Labour Force;
Employment in food and drink processing; and
Employment in the wider economy linked to the agri-food sector, such as haulage, packaging, hospitality and tourism.
The latest available recorded figures from the DARD Agricultural Census in Northern Ireland 2014 indicate that:
The Total Agricultural Labour Force was 47,900 in 2014, an increase of 0.2% on 2013.
Direct Employment in Food and Drink Processing (Full-time equivalents) was 21,783 in 2014, an increase of 2.0% on 2013.
No figures were available in respect of employment in the wider economy.
As the latest available figures relate to the year of, and the year following, publication of the AFSB’s report, while it appears that performance is broadly on track to meet the AFSB’s targets to 2020, a time series of data is not yet available to measure the impact of the AFSB’s strategy on employment and sales.