Earlier this summer, Denmark, a country of similar population to Ireland, did the unthinkable: it formally scrapped its century-old agriculture ministry, the first EU country to do so.

In a move that read like a plot twist from the Danish political drama Borgen, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen unveiled its new Ministry of Nature and Animal Welfare. At least part of this radical revamp has been aimed at breaking the decades-long stranglehold of agri-industrial lobbyists on government policy. Sound familiar?

And while the Irish Government is now back-pedalling furiously on even our existing modest climate commitments, Denmark has upped its ambitions, aiming for an aggressive 85 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions within nine years, on the path to climate neutrality by 2045.

The main driver for this has been deepening public unease at the severe environmental, climate and animal welfare toll of intensive livestock production, which in Denmark is dominated by its 30 million pigs. This came to a head in the so-called “pig election” last March.

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If there was a good case to be made in Denmark for scrapping its agriculture ministry, I believe the argument in favour of a similar step in Ireland is even more compelling and urgent.

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