Quality beef doesn’t stop at 30 months
With Irish beef prices at record levels, why then are the IFA proposing to tinker with the quality assurance payments system?
At present, a 6 cent per kg top-up is payable on in-spec cattle (that is, O= or better in conformation, providing the animal is aged under 30 months).
IFA apparently want to see this payment increased to 20 cents a kilo. Sounds good in theory, but let us examine the Quality Assurance Scheme in a little more detail and see how any improved payment might be funded.
Michael Doran IFA’s livestock chairman is quoted as saying. “The costs of producing QA animals have increased significantly and farmers need to be adequately rewarded.”
I agree with him on that point, however I believe that all animals which are sourced from Bord Bia-approved farms should be eligible for additional payments, not just those aged under 30 months and within restricted classes of conformation.
Am I under an illusion, or is it not a fact that all beef slaughtered from quality assured farms and sold for either domestic or foreign consumption is marketed as fully traceable and quality assured?
To qualify at present for the QA bonus payment, an animal must be aged under 30 months. and that can cause difficulties. The problem with setting unrealistic age limits — and 30 months is often an unrealistic age to get the best weight and conformation result from an animal — is that every animal is different.
Unlike a factory production line where you put X, Y and Z in at one end, and get a uniform result at the other, beef finishing has never conformed to such a simplistic model. As Mr Doran pointed out, it’s a costly business, and to achieve the most beneficial result from a farming point of view, economics and common sense can on occasion dictate that allowing animals to mature naturally without too much in the way of added feed costs is the most viable option.
In a grass based system, many of the breeds we use naturally require a couple of extra months over and above 30 to reach their full potential. My point is the obvious one, expanding the current system could in effect penalise further those farmers who produce a top quality product just because they allow their animals to age a little more. Remember too, our success abroad is one built on our green image, an image that portrays Irish farming as being very in tune with nature.
For what the IFA have suggested to work, you would in effect have to create a more pronounced two-tier payment structure. Allowing that processors will always pay the minimum required to secure cattle, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the introduction of a 20 cent premium on QA animals could see base prices maintained, but out-of-spec cattle could in effect be discounted further, in effect robbing Peter to pay Paul! Alternatively, the processing sector might decide to open up its books, and show exactly how much of a premium under-30 month cattle earn, as opposed to their older comrades, therefore eliminating any doubt as to their superior worth.
In keeping with our image abroad, as mentioned earlier, quality payments should be made on the basis not of age or conformation, but on the basis that if a farm is quality assured, all food produced thereon conforms to the highest standards of animal welfare, production ethics, and that the farming practices used are environmentally sustainable.
I therefore think that before the IFA commits its members further, they should seek the support of Bord Bia to have the quality payment system expanded on the basis outlined above, thus putting the payments more in line with consumers’ understanding of quality as opposed to industry efficiencies.
