Munster protest by farmers over beef
Farmers with over 30 tractors protested outside the Aldi supermarket in Mitchelstown as the Irish Farmers Association stepped up its campaign against retailers and meat factories.
Similar protests by farmers, furious over falling incomes, were staged outside Tesco in Naas, Co Kildare, and Lidl in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, during the past week. But last evening’s tea time demonstration in Mitchelstown was the first to be held in Munster where over 42% of all Irish cattle are located and where nine of the major meat factories are based.
IFA president Eddie Downey warned all of the major retailers, including SuperValu, Dunnes, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl, and the meat factories, that the unjustified price and specification cuts are severely damaging farmers and the beef sector, and must be reversed.
Mr Downey and IFA Livestock Committee chairman, Henry Burns, earlier met with senior Tesco executives in Dublin to discuss the difficulties in the beef sector and branding and labelling issues on cattle exported to Northern Ireland as well as specifications.
Mr Downey said afterwards that Tesco undertook to positively engage and work towards finding a solution regarding the branding and labelling issues.
Mr Downey said the specification for the Irish beef sector has to take account of the country’s high quality suckler beef production systems which are based on grass and later maturing continental breeds.
“This is the basis of Ireland’s top quality beef systems and our marketing drive around Origin Green and Quality Assurance. Forcing a specification based on intensively fed younger and lighter animals would be the wrong direction for Ireland,” he said.
