The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, told Irish farmers that they must become more competitive if they are to survive in a world of greater trade liberalisation following this week's World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Cancún.
"Whatever is agreed here will mean for Irish farmers that they will have to be internationally competitive," he said.
"There isn't any other way. This idea of being able to have an industry in a closeted, protected economy - where you have the right to export and at the same time complain about imports - just isn't being realistic," he said.
Mr Walsh insisted, however, that the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) agreed by the EU in June meant that the onus was on other trading blocs to make a greater effort to remove barriers to international trade. He said that the EU's negotiators, the Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy and the Agriculture Commissioner, Dr Franz Fischler, were bound by a strict negotiating mandate to defend the interests of European farmers.
"That mandate is very clearly that the mid-term review is as far as we are prepared to go and we're not prepared to pay twice for the world trade round," he said.
The EU and the US have agreed a framework for liberalising agriculture that would reduce tariffs on farm products and would eliminate export subsidies on products of special interest to developing countries.
Mr Fischler said yesterday that the EU was waiting for developing countries to suggest products that should be exempted from export subsidies.
Mr Walsh insisted, however, that he had won agreement from other EU ministers to designate beef and dairy products, the Republic's main agricultural exports, as sensitive products on which export subsidies should not be eliminated.
Irish farm leaders in Cancún said that the EU could not afford to concede anything on agriculture and complained that European farmers were being blamed unfairly for the plight of the world's poorest countries.
The Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr John Dillon, said that other countries should acknowledge the magnitude of the CAP reform agreed this year.
"It's up to other countries now to come as far as we have," he said.
Mr Dillon said that, as a State that produces nine times more beef than it consumes, Ireland would suffer more than any other EU country from the abolition of export subsidies. "Ireland can't export outside the EU without export subsidies so it's crucial to Ireland that we hold export subsidies for as long as we possibly can," he said.
Mr Dillon also hit out at Irish anti-poverty campaigners for undermining the Government's negotiating position by calling on the EU to make more concessions on agriculture. He said that Trócaire and Oxfam Ireland were making bogus claims about the impact of the CAP on the developing world while ignoring access to EU markets granted to the poorest countries under the Everything But Arms initiative.
"The Trócaire and Oxfam position is also undermining the European Union's agreed negotiating mandate in Cancún," he said.
Mr Pat O'Rourke, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association said that success for Irish farmers at Cancún was important for the economy as a whole, particularly at a time of job losses in other sectors.
"What's decided here will have an effect for the next 10 years so it's crucial that we get it right. If we lose and fail here, we're talking about 10,000 jobs that would be lost in the sector."
Mr Walsh predicted that the talks, which are expected to continue into the early hours of Monday morning, will produce a framework for reform, leaving details of cuts in tariffs and export subsidies for negotiation over the next year.
"There won't be anything happening at these talks which will mean that either export subsidies or tariff quota access will be terminated immediately but there isn't any doubt that the framework which will be agreed here will be for a greater liberalisation of world trade," he said.
