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A handful of protesters, one in a yellow vest, descended on the Bord Bia tent at the National Ploughing Championships in Carlow on Tuesday morning.
A number of farmers remain unhappy with the deal brokered between farm organisations and Meat Industry Ireland (MII) over the weekend and rumours were circulating that protesters might picket at the Ploughing.
Position
One of the protesters who turned up at the Ploughing told the Irish Farmers Journal he had been picketing for weeks and didn’t feel that Bord Bia understood the position farmers were in.
He questioned a Bord Bia official at its tent about the provenance of Irish beef that has been processed outside of Ireland during factory blockades.
“I was questioning them about how they can verify factories outside the country as Bord Bia accredited,” he said.
“They’re telling us it’s all Irish beef with Irish passports.”
Suspicion
A deep suspicion remains between some in the farm community of the relationship between Bord Bia and MII.
“What we’re seeing on the ground is totally different to what they're telling us,” the farmer said.
“We’re producing a top-quality product and we can’t figure why we can’t get paid for it.”
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