Confidence in the Beef Market Taskforce “will be completely lost” if it fails to tackle the crisis within the beef sector as a result of Covid-19, according to the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA).
Commenting on the taskforce, ICSA beef chairman Edmund Graham said:
“We have been categorically let down by the Department of Agriculture’s failure to convene a meeting of the Beef Market Taskforce in response to these unprecedented challenges.
Expecting farmers to continue to operate in a complete vacuum of information is inexcusable.
The chairman said that beef farmers are “close to the brink” in relation to cash-flow, adding that the “lacklustre response” from the EU “has left many despairing”.
“There is no future for producing beef at current prices and we have been looking to the Beef Taskforce to plot a way forward if the sector is to survive at all. This requires urgent input from all stakeholders,” Graham stressed.
“Online conferencing platforms provide the means to convene the taskforce but what we need now is a concerted effort from Minister Creed to make it happen.”
‘Ongoing engagement’
Commenting in the Dáíl yesterday, Thursday, April 30, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creed noted that there has been “ongoing engagement” with taskforce members, stating:
The beef taskforce has not met but there has been ongoing engagement with virtually all of the stakeholders during this period.
“Work that was undertaken and commissioned is progressing in my department which will facilitate the taskforce when it meets at the earliest possible date,” the minister added.