Bord Bia and its quality assurance (QA) schemes were in the firing line at the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) regional meeting in Charleville on Monday night.

From the moment the microphone hit the floor following the presentation on the revamped QA scheme, farmers lined up to air their criticisms of the QA process. Chief among the grievances was that primary producers were not seeing a financial benefit from it but others along the chain were profiting instead.

Patrick Carroll, south Tipperary IFA chair said that farmers have lost confidence in the QA scheme. “I understand it’s vitally important but everybody in the chain has to feel part of it.”

Similar views were echoed right across the farming sectors.

Questions and comments were robust but fair and there was no hiding the level of ire farmers in the room felt towards QA schemes.

Concerned

Concerned that farmers were being over regulated, Kerry IFA chair Jason Fleming highlighted suckler farmers having to be quality assured when they don’t get rewarded for it at mart level.

“If they got paid for joining it, it would be fine but when you carry a weanling into the mart, they get the same price whether they’re assured or not.”

In response to a comment from Flor McCarthy, who felt his farm organisation wasn’t doing enough for farmers in regard to the matter, president Francie Gorman said that the IFA previously pulled out of proceedings on the revamped QA standards before and would repeat this if required.

“If we’re not happy at any stage then we’re going to pull out again, if we don’t have a credible scheme in place.”

What they said:

Patrick Carroll - south Tipperary IFA chair

“I don’t think sustainability should be mentioned with the QA scheme because there’s no sustainability where the primary producer produces the product for a supermarket to say they’re sustainable when that producer to make a living can’t put the full costs back into his soil fertility or facilities. He’s running faster to stand still.”

Jason Fleming - Kerry IFA chair

“It’s all about farm incomes in order to keep farm families viable and unfortunately, we’re not seeing that. We’ve an ACRES scheme that with scoring and everything, the whole thing is a farce, it’s not working for farmers. The EPA and county council wanting to do more. We have to be careful we don’t regulate farmers out of existence.”

Flor McCarthy - Kerry farmer

“We’re expected to have higher and higher standards and we’re expected to do it for less and less money. When farmers have to hire consultants to get paperwork ready for audits, we have a problem.”