Beef Plan Movement

Enda Fingleton, southeast regional chair of the Beef Plan Movement, said a golden opportunity had been missed for farmers to achieve a fair living for their work.

Fingleton said: “It doesn’t stack up. The minister stated failure wasn’t an option. The talks have failed. How can we believe the so-called specs that are required by supermarkets? Why aren’t they providing data on taste and on quality? Where’s the consumer feedback?”

Progress was made on individual points, according to the group’s national strategy committee, but the overall dysfunctional model remained. As a result, farmers were “vulnerable and open to exploitation”.

“The question about where the money has gone was not addressed. Consumers are paying the same or more and farmers are paid considerably less.

“Either processors or retailers are benefiting at farmers expense,” the committee said.

Beef Plan southwest regional chair Dermot O’Brien said the outcome of the talks had been less than favourable and agreements reached after 36 hours of negotiations were only a small step forward.

IFA

IFA president Joe Healy said that some forward movement had been made at the talks, including agreement on a beef price index and opposition to imports of sub-standard beef into the EU. “But beef farmers will be disappointed that there is no increase in beef price because that is what is important to them,” Healy told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“They will wake up tomorrow [Wednesday] getting the same base price as they were.”

Healy said price had been the elephant in the room at the talks. He said the IFA had made it clear to Minister Creed that additional EU and Government support was urgently required for beef farmers in the middle of a severe income crisis.

ICSA

ICSA president Edmond Phelan said that it was disappointing that after nearly 40 hours of talks there had been agreement on just minor issues. Phelan said the inclusion of O- grades in the in-spec bonus would “benefit the big feedlots most and do nothing to improve the lot of suckler farmers producing the top- quality cattle”. He said many of the additional stock to receive the bonus would be lesser quality stock from the dairy herd.

ICMSA

ICMSA president Pat McCormack said: “The talks have concluded with an air of uncertainty on whether anything will be delivered for beef farmers.

“If the only thing that the talks achieved was the public signal that the present pricing structure, the present specs and the overall present system were now obviously themselves ‘out-of-spec’ then the exercise was worthwhile.”