The CSO, through Ireland's Institute for SDGs (IIS), supports reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Ireland was down from 6.5% in 2020 to 5.4% in 2021.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food and non-alcoholic beverages showed a 9.8% annual price increase in 2023, having risen by 6.8% the previous year.
Teagasc’s National Farm Survey showed the average family farm income rose from €34,719 in 2021 to €45,809 in 2022, with high variability in farm types.
Economic viability of farm types varied widely from 93% of dairy farms to 25% of sheep farms, as reported in Teagasc’s National Farm Survey 2022.
Official Development Assistance (ODA) towards the agriculture sector was €25,248 million in 2022.
This publication ‘Ireland's UN SDGs – Goal 2 Zero Hunger 2024’ is an update of the previous publication in the series from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). These publications monitor and report on how Ireland is progressing towards meeting its targets under the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The CSO and government departments and organisations collaborate to bring together data required in these reports for Ireland’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This collaboration is formalised under the SDG Data Governance Board, which meets on a quarterly basis. The publication for Goal 2 was developed in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
This publication includes data for Ireland for each of the SDG indicators selected by the UN to measure 'Goal 2 Zero Hunger'. Data is available at various levels of detail which include geography, gender, age group and other categories, where relevant, in accordance with the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
This report on Goal 2 has 14 indicators which are organised into three user friendly chapters:
The titles of these chapters are based around common themes in the eight targets which are measured in Goal 2.
The 17 UN SDGs are a set of global development targets adopted by the UN member countries in September 2015 to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The UN SDGs are driving the global development agenda towards 2030 (Agenda 2030). They address global challenges including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The 17 goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, the aim is to achieve them all by 2030. They recognise that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and help economic growth, while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
The CSO, Tailte Eireann (formerly Ordnance Survey Ireland)* and Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri-Ireland) established a project team in April 2017 to engage with a combined UN Statistics Division (UNSD)/Esri research exercise with a goal to develop and deploy a new approach for monitoring the UN SDG Indicators using geographic information systems. The result of this exercise is a new website (Ireland's SDGs Data Hub), hosted on OSi's Geohive platform, which is Ireland’s Central Portal for all SDGs and contains indicators data on the 17 UN SDGs for Ireland. All the indicators in this publication will be loaded onto the Geohive. This work has been formalised through the creation of Ireland’s Institute for SDGs (IIS) - an initiative between the CSO, Tailte Eireann and Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC). The membership of the IIS is expected to expand with ongoing monitoring and reporting of Ireland's progress towards meeting UN SDGs.
*Tailte Eireann is an independent Government agency formed by the merger of the Property Registration Authority (PRA), the Valuation Office and Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI), on 1st March 2023.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (21 June 2024) published Ireland's UN SDGs - Goal 2 Zero Hunger 2024.
Commenting on the publication, Mary Smyth, Statistician, said:
"This latest report on UN SDGs has data on 14 indicators for Ireland, divided over three chapters: Hunger, Agriculture, and Economic indicators. Data are presented in categories relevant to the indicators and geographical location, where possible. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their associated indicators are, by design, wide-ranging in their coverage. As a result, the Irish data is provided by a number of sources including government departments, official organisations, and international organisations such as the UN. This publication for Goal 2 was developed in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.”
Commenting on the results of the publication, Ms Smyth said:
“Fluctuations in food prices and farm incomes are apparent over the years, in addition to the variations in incomes by farm types. This report on Goal 2 examines the targets in greater detail.
Hunger
Looking at the chapter on Hunger, we can see the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Ireland was down from 6.5% in 2020 to 5.4% in 2021, as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). At 6.4%, males showed a higher rate of moderate or severe food insecurity than that of females at 4.5%. This gender disparity is shown across the years 2015 to 2021. CSO Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC) data for 2023 showed that 4.2% of people were ‘unable to afford a roast once a week’, up from 3.3% in 2022. Results from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey showed that obesity rates for young children aged five-years of age in 2013 was 5% and 15% were overweight.
Agriculture
Average family farm income in Ireland rose by almost 32% in 2022 to €45,809. However, it is important to emphasise that this increase is almost entirely attributable to the sharp rise in dairy and tillage farm incomes in 2022. A different perspective emerges when looking at income development in the drystock farming systems, with lower farm incomes reported on about half of all drystock farms in 2022. Incomes varied from €9,408 for cattle rearing farms (13.4% annual decrease) to €150,884 for dairy farms (52.8% annual increase).
Economic
Ireland’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) to agriculture programmes was €25,248 million in 2022. Malawi, the largest recipient, received €4.4m in 2022. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed the annual inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages in Ireland in 2023 was 9.8%. This was higher than the annual rate of 6.8% in 2022. In 2021 there had been a decrease of 0.2% in the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages."