The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has hit out at Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue for claiming it objected to individual proposals in the Food Vision beef report.
The association’s president Tim Cullinan has insisted that it was Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue himself who ruled out a suckler cow cull scheme for farmers six months ago in Thomond Park, Co Limerick.
The IFA president explained that his association rejected the Minister’s “half-baked” Food Vision report in its entirety at the time, as there was no funding plan to develop the beef sector.
“It is not correct for the Minister to claim [the] IFA’s objections were to individual proposals in the report. [The] IFA has consistently set out our willingness to engage in meaningful discussions on all proposals when the order of priority is addressed and funding levels are provided,” he said.
Plan
The IFA president was joined by the association’s livestock chair Brendan Golden in his criticism of Government’s suckler policy.
“The Government needs to tell us what their plan is for sucklers and come forward with a properly-funded plan for the sustainable development of the sector,” Golden said.
He insisted that the IFA has put forward detailed proposals to Government for suckler and beef farmers to help provide the sectors' economic viability and enable them to hit climate targets.
Golden said the beef sector is “facing even more challenges” in light of Brexit and the UK market’s opening to Australian beef imports.
MACC
Both Cullinan and Golden were responding to the Teagasc MACC publication last week, which outlined a 29% reduction in the suckler herd for agriculture to hit its 2030 climate target of a 25% reduction in emissions.
Cullinan claimed that the Teagasc MACC suckler herd decline projections are based on “trends in suckler cow numbers under current Government policies”.
“The fault here lies with our Government, who need to put confidence into the sector with a properly funded plan,” he warned.
Anger at Teagasc suckler forecast