€50m invested in beef and sheep meat

A €50 million investment aid package for the beef and sheep meat processing sectors was launched yesterday by Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan.

The initiative, funded by the Government under the National Development Plan 2007-2013, will be managed by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of the Department of Agriculture and Food and should trigger €120 million worth of investments.

Beef and sheepmeat processing have a combined annual turnover of some €3 billion, with exports of €2 billion in 2006.

The fund is designed to support capital investment, which is expected to increase scale in primary processing, increase added value in further processing and improve efficiencies to allow Irish companies compete internationally.

Ms Coughlan said she is confident the fund will ensure the strategic and coherent development of the sectors into the future and, in so doing, not only strengthen primary processing but also underpin agricultural incomes.

She said there had been a dramatic shift in the market focus of the Irish beef sector in the past few years. From a time when there was very high dependence on non-EU markets, the industry now sells close on 90% of its exports as fresh product on the EU market.

Ms Coughlan said the fund will consolidate Ireland’s position in the EU market where quality of product and efficiency of the supply chain are essential components.

Meat Industry Ireland (MII) , the IBEC group representing the country’s major beef and lamb processing companies, welcomed the investment support.

MII spokesperson Cormac Healy said such an initiative is essential to achieve improved structure, scale and efficiencies in the processing sector to ensure that the industry is equipped to meet the challenge of global competition, particularly inherent in the WTO negotiations.

Mr Healy said the sheep sector currently finds itself in a very challenging time. The processing industry has been proactive in the establishment of the Sheep Industry Development Strategy. Investment in processing as well as at farm level will be central to the implementation of the Strategy recommendations.