Beef on the menu at Kilkenny IFA hustings

Beef was firmly on the menu at the Kilkenny IFA election hustings on Wednesday evening.

Question after question from the floor related to the troubled livestock sector.

Most of these came from people highly critical of the IFA and supportive of the farmer protests that saw factories closed for most of a seven-week period back in August and September.

Different approaches

The three candidates adopted different approaches to criticism of the IFA’s lack of involvement in the protests.

I believed it would be wrong to lead farmers out when the market was never going to return the price increases promised

John Coughlan said the IFA’s executive council had decided not to officially support or join the protests. He said he supported that stance as it was the not the time to protest.

Angus Woods, as IFA livestock chair, took ownership of the IFA’s stance.

“Being president sometimes means making the unpopular decisions. In the summer, we made the decision not to protest. It was very clear last time we protested [in 2013] that we were €300 behind the British price. This time we were about €20 behind the UK price,” he said.

“I believed it would be wrong to lead farmers out when the market was never going to return the price increases promised to farmers up and down the country. Now farmers are finding it difficult to get animals slaughtered and there’s a backlog built up.”

Wood contrasted that with the €100m BEEP scheme which he and the IFA did deliver.

A vacuum

Tim Cullinan was much more critical of the IFA’s position, saying: “There was a vacuum.”

He expressed strong support for the pickets, and said “no one spent more time than me at factory gates”.

Cullinan later said Jim Power, who the IFA have engaged to prepare a report on the beef sector, was “the wrong man for the job”.

Cullinan said that the 30-month rule has to go because “it’s cost €10m in the last year alone”.

Woods, in contrast, pointed out the advantage to the suckler beef sector of slaughtering at younger ages. “If we reduced the average, the 30-month rule, age of slaughter by one month that would equate to the carbon footprint of 55,000 cows,” he said.

Beef brand

John Coughlan was critical of the role of Bord Bia, particularly the focus on inspections of farms. “Once every four or five years would be often enough for inspections. The resources need to be spent marketing Irish beef. We need a beef brand.”

He also called for a competitions body, separated out from the consumer commission, “to protect farmers in the marketplace”.

All three candidates said they would engage with the Independent Farmers, the latest addition to the growing ranks of farmer representative groups.

Other issues covered included carbon footprint, reconnecting with the IFA membership, and the vacant site levy, which was a big issue in Kilkenny. However, the battleground in this election is, as expected, the beef and suckler sector.

The hustings move to the west of Ireland, next week, so that trend is unlikely to change. The candidates appear in Athenry on Monday, Castlebar on Tuesday, Carrick-on-Shannon on Wednesday, and Mullingar on Thursday.

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