The Irish Beef and Lamb Association (IBLA) has successfully hit its €5,000 funding target to cover the costs of legal advice in its effort to seek an injunction against the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).
The IBLA said that these funds will be drawn down once its selects a legal team.
The money was raised through the online funding platform GoFundMe, with donations being received from midday on Saturday (January 20).
The farm group is aiming to get a court injunction against the ICBF in order to prevent the latter from publishing animal evaluation results based on the new terminal and replacement beef breeding indices.
The decision to proceed with injunction plans was one of the conclusions of an IBLA-organised meeting in Athlone last Wednesday (January 17).
The IBLA was aiming to raise €5,000 for an initial legal opinion.
If, following legal advice, the IBLA proceeds with seeking an injunction, it will attempt to raise a further €20,000 to pay the necessary court costs. It is understood that this will also be done through GoFundMe.
During the meeting last Wednesday, the IBLA claimed that the board of the ICBF is “considered dairy-industry focused and does not appropriately consider beef farmer interests”.
The changes to the terminal and replacement beef indices that have been introduced by the ICBF have proven to be controversial, with some breeders claiming their herds have been devalued due to changes in the star ratings of their animals.
The ICBF has also come under fire for a perceived lack of consultation with breeders and farmers.
The IBLA had previously said that it will consider seeking the injunction “prohibiting the ICBF from sharing publicly any evaluations of cattle using the revised beef [indices] until the issue is resolved”.
The IBLA has held a series of meeting with representatives from several breed societies, claiming that the consensus from those meetings is that “legal action should be taken against ICBF to stop the use of the new indices until such a time as a full consultation process has been exercised and a full review of the indices is carried out”.