The stakes are high in beef protest

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Despite stepping back from protest flash points, there is little sense that the Beef Plan Movement is losing its appetite for the pickets that have hit meat production plants across the country over the past two weeks.

Something, however, will have to give as producers — represented by Meat Industry Ireland — are apparently not for turning on their demand that any talks aimed at resolving the dispute can only take place after a suspension of demonstrations that have seen production grind to a halt.

Today, offered some hope that both sides could meet without losing face. A quiet day at the factories, the Beef Plan Movement could scale back protests — thus meeting MII’s pre-condition — but the producers would need to give commitments not to take advantage of that goodwill and up production during any meeting.

There is little trust or good faith on either side, exacerbated by the threat of injunctions against protesters that appear to bring little fear to those on the frontline.

It is a move that appears to have tipped those on the sidelines firmly on the side of protesters. The IFA only explicitly backed the Beef Plan Movement as the protests entered its second week, but has come out against talk of injunctions.

“Meat Industry Ireland should stop meeting lawyers and start meeting farmers,” said IFA President Joe Healy.

Minister Creed has described the threat from MII as unhelpful, but it’s much worse than that. The minister has to get tough with the factories and tell them to enter talks without any preconditions

“The current dispute is a product of the desperate situation beef farmers find themselves in. Threatening legal action just shows how out of touch with the reality Meat Industry Ireland is,” he said.

Speaking at the picket in Bandon this week, Ger Dineen of the Cork branch of the Beef Plan Movement said farmers are selling to factories at a loss — and so do not fear legal threats as they have nothing left to lose.

“Last year, for the beef farmer, the price of his cattle dropped by 8%. So we went into supermarkets to see if the price dropped in the supermarket by 8%. It went up by 1%. So we are on our knees here, earning €4 an hour.

“But there’s a 9% swing there. So where did the 9% go? Either the retailer or the factory took it. What’s actually happening is there’s a squeeze on. It’s corporate greed.

“They want to make more and more and more. I think tomorrow morning if there was an injunction here, fellas would stay on the line because we have nothing to lose. It isn’t sustainable to keep bringing animals here for nothing. Nothing would actually be grand, we’re losing €150 to €200 per animal. It makes no sense,” he said.

What separates this protest from former farmer demonstrations is the sense that these pickets are not organised by representative groups such as the IFA, but is driven by the grassroots.

Listening to those on the picket lines these protests bear a striking similarity to the water charges movement. There is a sense that a lack of political representation and defiance against larger forces is as much a motivation behind the protests as the plummeting price of beef.

Mr Dineen remarked as to how social media played a key role behind the protest’s momentum.

“How this was built, and how this actually got form, was through WhatsApp, and it’s amazing how farmers got into it,” he said.

“The Beef Plan group is all voluntary. There’s no one paid. It’s €10 to join, and how it has kept running is through WhatsApp. Only for WhatsApp, we wouldn’t be running.

“The young farmer is into technology but the older farmer? I’ve seen older farmers actually going out buying a smartphone just to get in on it. They’re getting all the feedback, and it’s brilliant.

“We had 20,000 members starting, I ran out of forms here for people signing up. So we could have 25,000 or 30,000 members now,” he said.

Legal threats have proven to be a PR own-goal for MII.

However on the other side of the battle for public opinion, stepping back from Charleville, Ennis, and Kildare — where protests were marred by allegations of aggressive confrontations — was a smart move by the Beef Plan Movement.

Whether this results in a splintering of the protests remains to be seen, but any suggestions of aggression of violence in the campaign’s ranks would undermine its credibility.

Rural TDs are currently rushing to picket lines for photo ops with peaceful protesters that have won the sympathy of much of the public — but if the Movement’s brand image changes to that of an unruly mob, any association with it would become toxic for a politician.