The Economic Impact of the Irish Bio-Economy: Development and Uses

Given Ireland’s bio-economy based natural resource strengths, in terms of its soils and oceans in particular, a number of economic strategies have been developed to maximise the contribution of Agricultural and Marine sectors to the economy. Consequently, it is desirable to understand the interactions between these sectors and the wider economy and to assess the potential impact of the outcomes of expansion strategies. This report describes the development of the Bio-Economy Input Output model (BIO) which can be used to analyse these linkages between the bio-economy sectors and the wider economy. This work represents the first attempt to model the Bio Economy as a whole, incorporating economic activity originating from both agricultural and marine resources.