The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has criticised what it said is a lack of farmer input in the dairy calf to beef action plan, saying the “exclusion” of farmers “is absurd and disappointing”.
Denis Drennan, the association’s president, acknowledged that the plan had merit, but that its potential was “hugely undercut by a complete lack of any consultation with the very farmers who would be those supposed to implement the bulk of the actions”.
“This is yet another in the increasingly long line of state initiatives where the government decides on measures without consulting the stakeholders, publishes its proposals and then engages in token consultation with stakeholders afterwards,” Drennan commented.
“This approach has been hugely damaging and wasteful and the government needs to reacquaint itself with the actual meaning of consultation.
“The ICMSA firmly believes that a vibrant dairy calf to beef system can be developed in Ireland that will deliver probably the most climate efficient beef production system in the world,” Drennan added.
According to the ICMSA president, his organisation “has been the most consistent supporter of the rather half-hearted attempts on the government’s part” to develop a dairy calf to beef system in Ireland.
“Dairy beef production accounts for in excess of 60% of total beef production in Ireland delivering billions in net foreign earnings for the country while the minister allocates a measly €6 million per annum to support dairy beef production,” he said.
“If the government is as serious about climate change as it keeps insisting they are, then it has to invest in low-emission beef production, and that means the dairy beef potential that’s right underneath their nose.”
Drennan has called for a dairy beef calf scheme with a “substantial” exchequer budget that will deliver a payment for both the calf rearer, subject to certain conditions, and also a payment for the beef finisher.
He also called for reforms to the beef price grid to stop what he claimed is the “ridiculous penalising of dairy beef”.
“We could have pointed all this out and helped design a real plan with real capacity to solve and real problem. But we weren’t even asked,” Drennan said.
He added: “Sooner or later, the (Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine) is going to have to question the wisdom of continuing to have these consultations with itself and then coming forward with plans that contain very obvious gaps that could be filled if only it had asked other parties to the problem.”