The second meeting of the Beef Market Taskforce is currently underway at Agriculture House in Dublin, where farmer organisations plan to raise the issue of price with some of the country’s major retailers.
The meeting today, Thursday, January 9, is the first taskforce meeting of the new year, and the second overall since the first meeting on December 3.
Speaking before he entered the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Pat McCormack, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), commented: “We hope there is meaningful engagement, with the retailers in particular.
We need to see a significant price shift. As lobbyists on behalf of farmers we need to make retailers very much aware that the price that’s out there at the moment, and their actions in the sale of beef, are not economically sustainable for the primary producer.
“It’s the primary producer that’s of our concern, and in particular the family farm structure. That is being challenged at an unprecedented level at the moment,” McCormack added.
In terms of what he was hoping to get out of today’s meeting, McCormack highlighted the need for the retailers to “come to the table meaningfully”, arguing that: “The end margins that the farmer is getting, and what the retailer is receiving, are two very different price figures.”
Speaking about the gap in price between Ireland and other markets, the ICMSA president commented that this gap needs to “not narrow, but close”.
Farmers confidence is at a precarious state at this point in time as they look to what they are going to do for 2020.
McCormack’s hope for engagement with retailers was echoed by his opposite number in the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), Edmond Phelan, who said: “The fact that we have retailers in, hopefully something will happen… We really need a lift in prices at the moment. We have to get above €4, which is a big ask.
“It’s a long way to go from €3.60. But prices are rising all over Europe, so there’s no reason we have to stay where we are,” Phelan added.
He also highlighted farmer exasperation by some sales practices by some processors in relation to beef.
It actually drives farmers cracked when they see things like ‘30% off’ or ‘50% off’ for the stuff we work hard to produce.
Meanwhile, Joe Healy, the president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), said it was important to see the “attitude” of the retailers at today’s meeting.
“I think it needs to be more constructive then what the processors brought to the first meeting of the taskforce,” Healy argued.
He added: “This is about increasing the price back to the beef farmer. That’s what beef farmers need to see, that’s what they want to see.”
The retailers attending the taskforce today comprise the ‘big five’: Tesco; Musgrave Group; Lidl; Aldi; and Dunnes Stores.