Unsustainable price fall jeopardises our Beef Industry – O’Neill Fine Gael Senator for Carlow/Kilkenny, Senator Pat O’Neill is calling on factories, supermarkets and farmers to work together to bring an end to this on-going crisis before our beef industry totally collapses, and also calls on the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney TD, to intervene immediately in order to prevent the future demise of farmers and the beef industry in Ireland. Today’s protest organised by the IFA commenced at the Mart in Kilkenny and made its way to McDonalds where over 500 farmer, some in tractors displayed their slogans ‘Beef Prices We’re not lovin’ it!’ Attended by the President of the IFA, Eddie Downey with farmers who continue to protests at various supermarkets throughout the country to highlight the on-going dire straits beef farmers find themselves in as the crisis continues to escalate. As a beef farmer, I know the pressures that the beef industry is presently experiencing. The huge losses incurred by farmers on their beef animals are unsustainable. Supermarkets and factories must cooperate with farmers in order to maintain the good will that has been built up over many years. Both factories and supermarkets have to be realistic, people cannot continue to work in this industry and continuously incur losses. The specs imposed by supermarkets presently to drive prices down are unrealistic and unfair. When cattle are scarce these specs do not seem to enter the equation but when there is a surplus of beef animals, like this year, partially due to a decline in consumption of beef in Europe, these unrealistic specs are harshly imposed. If an immediate resolution to this crisis is not achieved and no intervention offered, beef farmers will be forced out of business. This will have a devastating effect on our renowned Irish beef industry. We are already seeing this domino effect taking place with a large increase of our suckler herd being slaughtered. Farmers will cease producing suckler beef and the quality of our animals will also decline over the next couple of years.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 11:57:30 +0000
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