Joint bid to protect €2.25bn beef trade
Meat Industry Ireland, representing processors, and the Irish Farmers Association, on behalf of producers, have launched an agreed strategy to defend the industry from looming threats in world trade talks.
Both parties have called on Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan and the Government to declare the beef sector a vital national interest.
They said the industry must be defended against World Trade Organisation (WTO) cuts, which would seriously damage future viability and potential for growth.
The IFA and the MII also plan taking the campaign to EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, who will be leading the EU’s negotiation team at the WTO talks.
More than 100,000 cattle and beef farmers and some 12,000 workers, who are directly and indirectly involved in the processing sector, depend on the beef industry for their livelihood.
IFA president John Dillon said the EU cannot allow the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for beef, which is for consumers as well as producers, to be undermined by uncontrolled imports arising from a new WTO deal. He said the CAP provides European consumers with the highest standards of food quality, safety, traceability, environmental protection and animal welfare in the world.
Mr Dillon contrasted the scale and regulatory environment involved in family farm beef production in Ireland against the huge ranch-type production systems in South America.
“To meet the high expectations of Europe’s 450 million consumers, the EU must ensure that our domestic food production, which guarantees European consumer requirements, is not undermined in the WTO,” he said.
Mr Dillon said following the WTO framework agreement on agriculture last July, there is concern that the EU will agree to substantial cuts in import tariffs, which would devastate the domestic beef production base in Ireland and the EU.
He said total beef imports into Europe have already increased by 135,000 tonnes or over 34% to 536,000 tonnes in the past three years, with an 80% increase in prime cuts of chilled beef since 1998.
Ciaran Fitzgerald of Meat Industry Ireland said that for as long as beef production and processing in Europe is forced to operate at a higher cost base than their counterparts in South America, there must be adequate import safeguards to avoid the EU market being undermined.
