Caution urged as beef farmers pressed to expand output by 40%

BEEF farmers should exercise caution before responding to calls to expand their output by 40% without any evidence of sustainable prices, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Association (ICSA) warned.

ICSA general secretary Eddie Punch said he welcomes industry suggestions that there are beef sales growth opportunities in Germany and China, but expressed alarm at the Beef Activation Group “gung-ho talk” of expanding beef output by 40% by 2020.

Mr Punch said: “I can’t believe that they said that what we need now is a coupled payment. That will be a repeat of old mistakes of the past. The good prices that we have been getting for beef and lamb in 2011 couldn’t come about with old style coupled payments. We cannot fall back into the same trap of thinking that we can go back to coupled payments to artificially boost supply while taking our eye off the ball for the need for demand-driven price increases. There are only three things that drive up price: scarcity, scarcity and more scarcity.”