The second meeting of the Beef Market Taskforce was held today, Thursday, January 9, in Dublin, and featured farm organisations questioning retailers on a number of issues, particularly on the area of Quality Payment Scheme (QPS) rules.

Certain sales practices by the retailers also came in for attention, with Joe Healy, the president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) telling the businesses present that “the unsustainable discounting of top-quality beef was a race to the bottom that has to stop”.

“Beef prices cannot continue at current loss-making levels at farm level and must be increased,” he added.

Retailers and factories, who work together, must pass back higher market returns with a significant and immediate price rise to farmers.

At today’s meeting, the retailers outlined details of their specifications, which, according to Healy, are “in general a lot less onerous than those applied by the factories”.

Grant Thornton review

Healy also pointed out that the taskforce has hired international professional services firm Grant Thornton to conduct an independent review of market and customer requirements, specifically in relation to the four in-spec bonus criteria.

The retailer representatives indicated that they would co-operate with this review.

QPS

Other farm organisation representatives also pointed out that the QPS requirements were not set in stone for the retailers.

“The in-spec criteria was not as cut and dried as we had been led to believe. Tesco were the only ones that were adamant they wanted 30 months, but they only needed 30-day residence on the last farm,” said Edmond Phelan, president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), who spoke to AgriLand after the meeting.

Nobody else had any requirements on residency, other than the Bord Bia requirement which was 70 days in total, which could be on numerous farms.

There was general agreement that the engagement with the retailers went well at today’s meeting, and was the most positive outcome of the talks.