The Irish Examiner View: An opening door?

Like all sectors of the economy, agriculture and food production will suffer because of the pandemic. However, the ying and yang of these things may offer some unexpected opportunity too, especially for beef farmers.

Argentina’s beef shipments to the EU have stalled as coronavirus disrupts global food supply chains. That, unfortunately, may be situation for some time to come.

Argentina’s beef exports hit $3bn in 2019, and 9% of that came to the EU despite the objections of European farmers. Our beef exports fell by 1% last year but still hit €3.9bn. Those figures — €3bn as against €3.9bn — tell their own story about contrasting production cultures.

Weaker demand in the UK hit Irish beef prices and led to an overall market decline of 7%. Britain’s beef market is worth €990m to Irish producers.

The gap left by Argentina’s unfortunate difficulties will be, even temporarily, filled by someone if they can overcome the difficulties stymieing South American producers.

As the idea of ying and yang underlines, as one door closes another usually opens.