ICSA calls for dairy-style relief for suckler sector

Suckler farmers need a €200 per suckler cow incentive to voluntarily reduce numbers in light of oversupply of beef in Europe, says ICSA suckler chairman Dermot Kelleher.

He says that 200,000 more cattle will go for slaughter in 2017 than in 2015. He said a voluntary five-year EU-wide scheme is needed to address profitability challenges in the sector.

“We need to learn from the strategy applied at EU level to deal with the dairy crisis in 2016 where the strategy was a rational move to reduce production to deal with the supply/demand imbalance,” said Mr Kelleher.