Farmers raise tempo of cattle price campaign
The protests at AIBP (Cahir and Nenagh) Dawn Meats (Granagh, Co Waterford, and Rathdowney, Co Laois) and Kepak (Athleague, Co Roscommon) will continue until tomorrow afternoon.
However, the Irish Meat Association (IMA) and the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) again clashed over the effects of the protests, which have now entered their fourth week.
IMA chief executive John Smith said the IFA campaign to force factories to pay higher cattle prices has failed: "The price that can be paid for cattle by the country's meat factories has to be based on the returns that can be achieved for Irish beef on international markets."
Mr Smith said the IFA has been setting unrealistic price expectations and, in doing so, is misleading Irish farmers. The IFA action was proving extremely damaging to the efforts that Irish meat factories are making to service existing outlets, regain lost markets and find new customers for Irish beef.
"Irish beef is competing on an oversupplied international marketplace against lower-priced South American beef. Russia remains the only third country market currently buying Irish beef and returns from that market have fallen in recent weeks.
“For technical and veterinary reasons no cattle have yet been processed for Egypt. Market returns from steak cuts sold into EU markets have also fallen in price."
Mr Smith said that, in an extremely difficult international marketplace, meat factories have been losing money all year and sustained loss-making will undermine the industry's viability.
