The IFA yesterday (Wednesday) released results from their pigmeat DNA testing scheme.

It confirmed findings first reported in this newspaper on 24 August that over half of the pigmeat sampled from Irish retail shelves was imported. We have no objection to quality imported meat competing here, but we have a major problem with consumers being misled when that product is wrongly presented as Irish.

The background is a world first in traceability – a national database of a genetic sample to identify every boar used in the Irish herd. This allows IdentiGen to definitively say whether a piece of pigmeat labelled as Irish is genuinely that.

The domestic market is crucially important to the price paid for pigs here. Despite a lower than expected supply of Irish pigmeat due to lingering Blue Ear effects, the farm gate price of pigs was cut by 6c per kg last Friday, with fears of a further cut this Friday.