24-hour beef price protests
They will maintain a vigil outside the plants overnight and into Tuesday afternoon in a major escalation of their campaign on cattle prices.
It will be the latest in a series of protests staged by farmers at locations countrywide in recent months.
Irish Farmers’ Association president Eddie Downey said farmer anger with the meat factories has boiled over. He said a massive €350 per head cattle price gap has now opened up with Ireland’s main export market in Britain. The IFA message to the factories is very clear: “Farmers have had enough and are not prepared to tolerate loss-making prices any longer, especially when markets are returning much higher prices.”
He said that for the past 12 months factories have hammered farmers with loss-making prices and specification cuts that have inflicted serious income damage on producers. “Farmers cannot continue to sell cattle at a loss,” he said.
Mr Downey said farmers are very determined that beef prices at the factories must rise to fairly reflect the very strong increase in UK cattle prices, where Irish beef sales are up 20% this year. He said nobody can explain to farmers why the price increases in the UK, which takes over half of Ireland’s exports, are not reflected in higher prices to Irish farmers.
Mr Downey called on the beef processors to reflect the stronger market returns in prices paid to farmers without delay.
IFA Livestock Committee chairman Henry Burns said farmers are very angry with what he claimed was the failure of Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney to tackle the factories on the beef issues. He said the most recent Teagasc survey data shows that incomes on livestock farms are extremely low.
Meanwhile, preparations are going ahead for the 24-hour protests outside all of the country’s meat plants from Monday afternoon. Processors indicated some weeks ago that they were willing to look at ways of increasing industry flexibility regarding the weight of the cattle they buy from livestock farmers.
Meat Industry Ireland (MII), representing the processors, said it hoped to meet with farmers as soon as possible on the issues.
MII chief executive, Ciaran Fitzgerald, said he recognised the year had been tough for farmers. “We recognise that there is a long-term trend, and a long-term trend in demand, well established, for younger, lighter animals. But given the hardship suffered by farmers this year, we are prepared to look at something in the context of weights and the penalties that might apply to weights,” he said.
