Farm leaders welcome minister’s decision

Ireland: Farm leaders have welcomed a decision by Agriculture and Food Minister Joe Walsh to grant aid for the purchase and installation by meat processors of beef carcass classification machines.

It followed extensive discussions with the Irish Meat Association and IBEC, representing the processors.

Robin Smith, ICSA beef committee chairman, said the factory investment of 60% in grading machines must be treated as a capital expenditure and written off over time. It should not under any circumstance be recovered from the animal, as suggested by some factory chiefs.