Slaughter decision delay
The Association’s governing body has already plumped for 100% decoupling of payments for everything in the livestock sector; but they have reserved their decision on the premia payable for animals slaughtered at meat plants and abattoirs.
The IFA National Dairy Committee are also discussing the best option for dairy farmers in the decoupling of their EU support, which will not come into effect until 2008.
IFA President, John Dillon, has told farmers in Co Limerick that if the slaughter premium remains coupled, producers would have to have cattle numbers and acreage equal to that in their reference years, to retain the same payments into the future. But if the decision is to decouple, the only necessity to qualify for the payments would be to have the same area of land.
He confirmed that the organisation’s National Council has decided to go along with the principle of decoupling in beef generally.
“We are going for decoupling in beef and I expect a decision on the slaughter premium to be made at the next National Council meeting”, he said. He added, “the slaughter premium has been worth 140m per annum to Irish farmers, but that could be back to 100m per year in the future if we don’t get it right and production falls, which is expected under the CAP Review”.
He said that the producers of Holstein type calves could be the big losers in the new regime, because Holsteins will not be necessary in beef production, and the only hope is that there may be an export market for these.
“If we are to concentrate on producing quality beef, to get the best return from the markets, the lowest acceptable grade will be a good quality R, but most of the animals for beef will require to be grading E and U,” he warned Joe Sheehy.
