Farmers call for beef strategy

THE Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association has called for the establishment of a beef strategy board.

ICSA president Malcolm Thompson, called on the incoming Agriculture and Food Minister, who will be named in the Cabinet reshuffle next Wednesday, to prioritise such a move.

He said beef prices are deplorable and farmers need a long-term strategy to deal with recurring beef crises.

“We cannot go from one dispute to the next - this is no way to operate a modern business,” he said.

Mr Thompson said the ICSA is proposing that all players involved in the production, processing and sale of beef would sit on a permanent beef strategy board. “This group would review and revise strategy on an ongoing basis. Not enough is being done to ensure that we have adequate and suitable markets for beef,” he said.

Mr Thompson said meat processors must realise that farmers cannot sustain the uncertainty and heavy losses associated with producing below cost.

“Farmers will have no option but to cut production as soon as decoupling comes in unless there is an immediate move to doing business a better way,” he said.

As beef farmers countrywide prepare to stage a national day of protest on Monday, the IFA deputy president Ruaidhrí Deasy said there is real anger among cattle farmers at the way meat factories have cut prices.

Fine Gael spokesperson Billy Timmins called on the Minister for Agriculture to examine the possibility of extending the slaughter premium into the early months of 2005.

“Part of the reason for the over-supply of cattle is farmers’ anxiety that they will lose their slaughter premium. This problem is going to get worse. One way to alleviate the pressure on farmers would be to extend the slaughter premium,” he said.