Public Consultation on Scoping of Environmental Report for the Agri-Food Strategy 2030

The process for developing the next ten year strategy to replace Food Wise 2025 has commenced.As an important part of the development of the Agri-Food Strategy 2030, the Department has procured RSK Ireland Limited to prepare an environmental report of the likely significant effects on the environment of implementing the Strategy.

This report will be carried out in accordance with EU Directive 2001/42/EC and the European Communities (Environmental Assessment of Certain Plans and Programmes) Regulations 2004 ( SI 435 of 2004 ).

Prior to making a decision on the scope and level of detail of the information to be included in the environmental report, and in addition to consulting with the environmental authorities, a wider non-statutory public consultation to encourage further participation by stakeholders and the public is being undertaken in parallel.

In accordance with the provisions of article (11) of S.I. No. 435/2004 - European Communities (Environmental Assessment of certain Plans and Programmes) Regulations 2014 the report is required to include the information that may reasonably be required, taking into account:

• current knowledge and methods of assessment
• the contents and level of detail in the plan
• the stage of the plan in the decision-making process
• the extent to which certain matters are more appropriately assessed at different levels in the decision-making process in order to avoid duplication of environmental assessment

A written submission or observation in relation to the scope and level of detail to be included in the environmental report may be provided as soon as possible, but no later than 8 September 2020.

To facilitate this please find below a draft Strategic Environmental Assessment Scoping Report:

• Draft Strategic Environmental Assessment Scoping Report

Submissions may be sent by email to 2030strategy@agriculture.gov.ie or by post to:

All submissions, including the name of the person making the submission, will be published on the Department’s website.

All submissions and comments submitted to the Department for this purpose are subject to release under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2014 and the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007- 2014. Submissions are also subject to Data Protection legislation. Personal, confidential or commercially sensitive information should not be included in your submission and it will be presumed that all information contained in your submission is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

Please note that if you make a submission you are agreeing for it to be published in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR EU 2016/679), the Data Protection Acts 1988-2018, the Freedom of Information Act 2014 and the DPER Consultation Principles and Guidance.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and employs appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information from unauthorised access. The Department will not process your personal data for any purpose other than that for which they were collected. Personal data may be exchanged with other Government Departments, local authorities, agencies under the aegis of the Department, or other public bodies, in certain circumstances where this is provided for by law.

The Department will only retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purposes for which they were collected and subsequently processed. When the business need to retain this information has expired, it will be examined with a view to destroying the personal data as soon as possible, and in line with Department policy. Further information on Data Protection can be found on our website.