Wrangle over beef prices heats up as protests go on
Chief executive of the Irish Meat Association John Smith, representing the processors, said the ongoing Irish Farmers' Association price protest action represents a serious threat to the viability of the beef industry and to the livelihoods of farmers.
But the IFA leader John Dillon said beef farmers are no longer prepared to tolerate sanctimonious lectures from the IMA on beef prices when it is the marketing failure of the factories that has left producers with the lowest cattle prices in Europe.
The clash occurred as farmers continued to protest outside Kepak meat factories. Similar protests had previously been held outside AIBP and Dawn plants.
Mr Dillon said the enormity of the factories' marketing failure is exposed by the 160-a-head difference this week between cattle prices in Ireland and Britain. Farmers are more determined than ever to intensify the cattle price campaign and break the factories' stranglehold on prices, he said.
But the IMA's John Smith said Irish meat factories are competing in over-supplied markets in which meat buyers can readily source their requirements elsewhere, often at lower cost. International buyers rather than the IFA determine the prices that can be paid for Irish cattle.
"To succeed at retail level in the international marketplace Irish processors have to be able to convince buyers that they can guarantee them quality Irish beef at reasonable prices on a continuous basis, without disruption of supply.
"The orchestrated IFA action currently underway once more raises a question in the mind of buyers as to the reliability of supply from Ireland.
"IFA's action is 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," he said.
Veterinary and food safety experts from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are, meanwhile, attending a five-day beef conference which began in Dublin yesterday.
Irish beef was included in a ban by the Gulf States on European beef following the onset of the BSE crisis in mainland Europe late in the year 2000. The Dublin conference on food safety and consumer protection in the beef sector has been organised by the Department of Agriculture and Food, and An Bord Bia, and is aimed specifically at important markets in the Gulf region.
The Gulf delegates will have the opportunity to see at firsthand Irish methods of livestock and beef production and processing, and to assess for themselves the quality and effectiveness of Irish BSE controls.
