The commitment of €6 million to develop a suckler premium beef brand has been welcomed by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA).
ICSA president Edmond Phelan lauded progress made at the Beef Market Taskforce which went on late into the night last night (Thursday, October 22).
Commenting, Phelan said: “While the ICSA would have preferred an exclusively suckler-based PGI [Protected Geographical Indication], the development of a suckler premium brand is now a real possibility with the backing of €6 million state funding and agreement that it would be overseen by a majority farmer representative committee.”
“So there are now going to be two separate initiatives to improve the market image of Irish beef – one being the grass-fed PGI and the other is the new suckler brand.
“Each will be monitored by farmer-controlled committees, which we hope can keep the emphasis on the primary producer.”
Describing this progress as “only a start”, the president said that his organisation “fought very hard to ensure that the PGI committee can control the use of the PGI logo” so that if it doesn’t deliver for farmers, it will have to be brought back to the drawing board.
“In particular, the ICSA has been at pains to point out that farmers need to be in control of initiatives that are meant to benefit the primary producer,” Phelan claimed.
He added that the level of funding for the suckler brand was also a hot topic as this “would indicate whether we were serious or not”.
“The final proposal to double the previous offer to €6 million is progress and we welcome that.
Today has also seen an acknowledgement that farmers need to have a majority in terms of the controlling committees – and this has been achieved.
“We expect to have further engagement with the minister in the coming weeks,” the president concluded.