Allan Barber likes the Irish inclusive approach to industry strategy, which includes "impressive commercial and intellectual grunt", over MPI's silo approach

The Ireland model can't work here.

The EU subsidises just about all aspects of agricultural production, and ensures a captive competition free market.

How is it even possible to replicate that here?

There is a property of markets called nonstationarity—it is a game whose rules are constantly changing. Most people can figure out how to make money in one set of rules, but when the rules change, they are screwed.
Jared Dillian

Russia encompasses one of only two soil belts in the world known as “Chernozem belts.” It runs from Southern Russia into Siberia across Kursk, Lipetsk, Tambov and Voronezh Oblasts. Chernozem, Russian for black soil, are black-colored soils with a high percentage of humus, phosphoric acids, phosphorus and ammonia. Chernozem is very fertile soil producing a high agricultural yield. The Russian Chernozem belt stretches from Siberia and southern Russia into northeast Ukraine, on to the Balkans along the Danube .

This past harvest year, Russia surpassed the United States to become the biggest exporter of wheat — a milestone.Russia today also permits foreign leasing of agriculture land. The government is in discussion with Asian food groups in China and Thailand to help invest and modernize key sectors such as dairy production. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has a $2 billion fund with China to invest in agricultural projects. They also recently formed a joint venture with Thailand’s CP Group to build Russia’s largest integrated dairy complex. It’s also working with Egypt to create an export hub for Russian grain on the Suez Canal.

Notable is the fact that many of Russia’s oligarchs, rather than take their riches out of the country to invest in London real estate or football clubs or other projects that do nothing to build Russia’s economy, are now investing big sums into Russia’s agriculture. Tax and other incentives that the Government has put in place are making agriculture investment in Russia hugely profitable for these Russians. Yevgenia Tyurikova, the head of private banking at state-run Sberbank, Russia’s largest, recently told Bloomberg, “The two hottest investments for rich Russians are farmland and European hotels. This trend is absolutely new.”

The month that Putin declared the 2020 food self-sufficiency goal in December last year, one such oligarch, Vladimir Evtushenkov, through his holding, AFK Sistema, bought the huge Yuzhny Agricultural Complex, with greenhouses the size of 2,300 football fields between the Black and Caspian seas. The plants, mainly tomatoes and cucumbers, get pure clean water from melting ice from nearby Mount Elbrus. They are grown by the millions and mostly trucked to Moscow, an 18 hour journey. Sistema spent about 9 billion rubles on agricultural expansion last year, and is now looking to buy more land to become one of Russia’s top five milk producers.

Ros Agro Plc, a sugar and meat producer, owned by billionaire Vadim Moshkovich, got 3 billion rubles ($46 million) in state support. Under the Government incentive program to encourage investment, the company paid zero tax on profits, helping to boost its net earnings margin to 33 percent, larger even than Lukoil. Other oligarchs turning in a major way to building a modern, organic and profitable agriculture sector include Phosagro OJSC fertilizer tycoon Andrey Guryev, real estate magnate Samvel Karapetyan, United Co., Rusal chief Oleg Deripaska.

The next stage in increasing the Russian food self-sufficiency is to bring an estimated 40 million hectares of idle agriculture lands, much of it abandoned during the collapse of the economy in the Yeltsin 1990’s. That’s idle land about the size of Iraq. Putin has urged the state to consider giving some of it away to create more farmers, the opposite of Stalin’s disastrous collectivization. The land give away began this month in the Far East.

This comment in todays FT
What is being realized in France and Germany is that they are holding the bag for the huge, hidden EZ losses. Yes, the UK was never in the EZ but as a member of the EU they were in line to get their share of the losses. Now the UK is safe from those losses.

$2 Tril is small potatoes. When the world realizes how huge the losses are that are being hidden in the EZ (primarily by the ECB), there will be real losses. Get ready for the 4th Greek bailout coming later this year. That ought to push the loss from Greece alone above $1 Tril........and this won't be a market fluctuation. Furthermore the EZ losses are going to be concentrated in the EU/EZ and not around the world.

Aussie chicken
http://www.beefcentral.com/trade/wholesale-trade-record-low-chicken-pri…

The evolution in banking and, particularly, central banking changed the character of the eurodollar markets into a financial conduit for “money printing.” Aided by policy and the ageless desire of banks to ruthlessly expand without limitation, dollars were being created, traded and derived via banks everywhere. This was thought to be an immense privilege of the reserve currency, but in reality it was central bank-aided and condoned debasement and disaster. It was not a privilege at all, but rather a full abdication of responsibility. If you want to know where the asset bubbles came from, look no further.
http://www.alhambrapartners.com/2013/11/15/understanding-eurodollars-pa…

if you are a farmer think about how unrealisic the target of doubling exports by 2025 is.

I think the part of the equation that is required is rising demand for agricultural products. That will depend on the world economy, which is largely out of our control.