A crowd of over 400 packed in to the Killeshin hotel on Monday night to hear from Meat Industry Ireland (MII), Bord Bia and IFA about the current beef crisis. Michael Houlihan from Bord Bia addressed the meeting along with Cormac Healy, MII, Angus Woods IFA national livestock chair, and Francis Gorman, Laois IFA chair. It was a heated meeting, with both Bord Bia and meat factories coming in for severe criticism from the floor.

Frustrated and angry farmers posed a number of questions about where the future of the industry lies.

Local man Henry Burns gave a passionate plea to the top table to do something to stop farmers coming to the wall this spring.

Losses

John Kehoe, a large beef finisher from Co Carlow, told the meeting that he was losing €500/head at the moment on his finishing bulls and he demanded answers from both Bord Bia and MII.

“I took a beating in 2014 that I never thought I would have to take again but at the moment I’m taking a huge beating," he said.

"It shocked me today to see that the price of U-grade bulls in Italy is €4.50/kg, they are €4.20 in France. How can Bord Bia and MII say they are doing anything right when we are selling beef at €1/kg less and still can’t get it into these shelves.

Price improvement

In defence of his members, Cormac Healy from MII said that there has been improvement in prices over the last number of years and in general we track the EU average quite well.

On quality assurance (QA) he said that it was a prerequisite for entering nearly all markets at this stage. “I would caution any walk away from QA. Our members are working extremely hard to diversify markets but it doesn’t make sense to move away from our highest price market, which is the UK.

"Getting access to new markets takes time, we are competing with a lot of other countries to get access to China. We have six plants approved with one more approved on Friday last. We have 12 plants waiting to get approval. It’s a very slow process.”

Too late

Another local man, Liam Delaney, who was once a flagship farmer for McDonalds through Dawn Meats, said it was too late for him as he has made the decision to switch his farming operation to dairy.

"I couldn't sustain the losses any more and I needed to get out while I could" he said.

"I'll have kids going to college in five years and I need to make sure I can pay for them. Dairy farming is the only thing that can provide this for me.

"That's a sad thing to say and there is no one more disappointed than myself that I have to exit beef production."

IFA Reaction

IFA national livestock chair Angus Woods said he was appalled at the comments from the Government in the past few months: “First we have our Taoiseach coming out telling people he is cutting back on meat consumption, then we have Richard Bruton condoning messages going out to schools about the damage eating meat does to the environment.

"We also have our own Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed adopting a wait and see approach assuring us that he will step in if there is a hard Brexit. Irish beef farmers are already feeling the consequences of Brexit and we are demanding the Government take action now.”

On the issue of factories he said: “ Beef factories have used the smokescreen of Brexit to drive down prices and profit on the back of it. They continue to expand their businesses and make acquisitions while beef farmers struggle to put bread on the table”

For more detailed coverage see this week's Irish Farmers Journal.