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As Declan O’Brien reported in this week's Irish Farmers Journal, the revised Quality Assurance scheme which was originally intended for release last month, is now a year behind schedule.
With the IFA pulling out of the Technical Advisory Committee, it is difficult to envisage much further progress on updating the standards without their input on behalf of farmers.
Quality Assurance has long been a frustration for Irish farmers.
It is a cause of further bureaucracy load on already overburdened farmers and while the constant message from factories is that it is required to get the beef from Irish farms sold in the highest value markets, farmers feel they don’t get a sufficient share of the benefit from this.
Reason for Quality Assurance
The current Sustainable Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme (SBLAS) is the latest incarnation of a quality assurance (QA) scheme whose origins can be traced back to the 1990s.
The original drivers of QA were the major retailers and food service buyers of beef in the UK and the concept was to give consumer assurance about the integrity of beef when BSE was at its peak and consumer confidence in the product was weak.
The concept was that farmers would document and have audited on a regular basis every step of their farming practices, showing how they complied with the legislation around the key elements of livestock farming.
It wasn’t intended to push farmers beyond what they already do to farm within the rules but the fact that they were part of an audited scheme meant that they were demonstrating compliance.
It is a bit like having an NCT for cars – vehicles are required to be road worthy at all times but passing an NCT test proactively demonstrates that they have been checked independently to confirm that they do.
There was a further benefit for the supermarket and food services customers of beef, sourcing QA beef from wherever in the UK or Ireland meant that they could demonstrate due diligence in their beef sourcing policy.
As time progressed, QA schemes acquired extra add-ons to deal with the issues of the day, the most recent being sustainability. The problem with add-ons is that they usually demand more effort from farmers without any additional remuneration.
Given that such a high proportion of Irish beef is QA, farmers struggle to see the benefit from being members, especially as there are often good outlets paying comparable money for the minority of livestock that are marketed outside the scheme.
Comment
There is no doubt that QA is an essential part of the specification for cattle used to supply beef to the large British supermarkets and food service outlets including the large burger chains.
Therefore membership is a must for farmers that want to sell their cattle into these highest value markets.
However the bar for QA cannot be raised so high that farmers can't be bothered with participating and this is where careful diplomacy is required.
It is a reality that customers will always demand more for less but if they over reach in the process, there is a risk of losing or at least damaging the core product.
Quality Assurance has been of benefit to Irish farmers but there is a limit to how far it can be pushed without losing the buying that has been there for years at this stage.
Of course if it could be shown clearly that more demands were being rewarded with more money, it would become a more interesting debate entirely.
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