A member of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine is calling on the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) to immediately suspend its recent re-classification of beef breeding indices.
ICBF representatives appeared before the committee yesterday (Wednesday, December 13) to face questioning about the controversial changes which came into force on November 28.
Independent Michael Collins, along with other members of the Oireachtas committee, stated that there is profound anger among cattle producers, particularly pedigree cattle breeders, who say that the value of their herds have been significantly devalued in the last round of evaluations by the ICBF.
Beef index
“It is clear to me that the ICBF has no conception of the anguish that this issue has generated for farmers. It has effectively wiped out at least 40% of some farmers income overnight.
“The ICBF have lost the dressing room on this, and it has lost the confidence of virtually all political representatives for the ham-fisted way in which it derived and communicated the re-classification.
“I am hearing from farmers that their best cows have been devalued from five and four star breed scores to one star. How can the ICBF fail to see that this is going to massively impact profits and income?,” Deputy Collins said following the meeting.
The Cork South-West TD said that the Simmental cattle breed society have highlighted a number of flaws in the index “that require urgent auditing”.
Collins said he supports a request from the society to re-instate the former beef index “until full clarification is received”.
“The ICBF want us to believe this is all just bad communication and ‘scare-mongering.’ That is grossly offensive, and it treats cattle breeders as fools who cannot assess the damage being created by this move.
“I want this re-classification suspended until an independent review of its impact can be obtained and the sooner this happens the better,” the TD said.
ICBF
ICBF chief executive Sean Coughlan admitted to the committee that communication with farmers around changes to the beef breeding index has been “sub-optimal” and would be reviewed.
ICBF will establish an industry stakeholder forum early in 2024 “to engage with all stakeholders on the suckler beef indexes”.
Many members of the committee noted that this forum should have been established in advance of the changes coming into effect.
Coughlan said that if the changes to the beef breeding indexes were reversed, it would “create even more chaos”.
“If we think that the level of confusion that’s out there now is bad, changing it mid-stream again, and having indexes and people not knowing where they’re going to stand – they’re going to try and predict what’s going to happen, it’s going to create even more chaos out there,” he said.