‘Dissatisfied farmers should insist on selling cattle off the grid option’

ALL farmers should insist on having the option to sell their cattle off the grid, according to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association.

ICMSA Beef and Cattle Committee chairman Kevin Connolly said the vast majority of farmers are totally dissatisfied with the new grid system because they know they are losing money under the system.

The reality is that farmers do not know the price for their cattle when they leave their yard, which is simply unacceptable. In addition, meat plant agents are unable to tell the farmer with any accuracy what grid box his/her cattle are likely to fit into.

Mr Connolly said the system is too complicated, unworkable and the penalties are too heavy. The system should now either be reviewed or scrapped.

“Farmers are voting with their feet on this one and unless the industry wakes up and starts listening to farmers on the ground, they will find very quickly that their supply of cattle has diminished which is in nobody’s interest,” he said.

Mr Connolly said while Meat Industry Ireland may claim to a Dáil Committee that the system is voluntary, the reality for farmers is that they are being forced to sell their cattle on a grid system since last December which they do not want to do.

“However, it is now quite clear that many farmers are succeeding in selling their cattle outside the grid without the substantial penalties.

“Given this, all farmers should now be pressurising their meat plant to either sell off-the-grid and or, alternatively, that the meat plants revise the grid substantially so that it is simpler and the penalties are less severe,” he said.