The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) has walked away from the Food Vision Beef and Sheep Group over opposition to a number of measures proposed in the final report.
The group’s final report, containing recommendations on cutting emissions from the beef and sheep sectors, is being debated at a meeting of the group today (Friday, November 18) at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s Backweston Campus in Co. Kildare.
In a letter to its fellow stakeholders on the group, which has been seen by Agriland, the INHFA said that it “cannot allow its name to be associated with this report and has been mandated following a meeting of our National Council on [November 16] to withdraw from this process”.
The farm organisation has taken issue with four specific measures relating to the beef sector contained in the report, which are as follows:
- Measure 1 – Reducing slaughter age to 24 months;
- Measure 2 – Reducing the age of first calving to 24 months;
- Measure 8 – Farm diversification scheme;
- Measure 9 – Farm extensification scheme.
The INHFA said it has “major issues” with these measures and will not be associated with them.
Measures 8 and 9, the association believes, are “effectively a cull of our suckler herd”.
These measures should not proceed without a socio-economic assessment relating to the farming system and the wider rural economy supported by those systems, the letter says.
“Beyond this we also need to recognise the reputational damage from such a cull. How can we continue to promote naturally-reared suckler beef in markets throughout Europe and beyond while promoting a cull in order to deliver on climate change targets.”
Measure 1 of the report, the association says, will undermine suckler and extensive farming systems.
The INHFA highlighted three specific concerns with this measure:
- Beef price manipulation resulting from pressure on slaughtering. This pressure “will be seen each spring” as farmers will be selling stock into an over supplied market;
- A 24-month slaughter age would “give rise to the possibility that this requirement could become mandatory in any future suckler support scheme”;
- A possibility that this could become a requirement for Board Bia certification.
On measure 2, which proposes the reduction in the age of first calving, the INHFA said that this is not achievable in an extensive farming model, including organic farming.
“While this may be possible in intensive farming systems, whereby the heifer is intensively fed through a meal feeding programme, for many suckler farmers often operating on fragmented holdings, this option is not realistic and for many more they have no desire to pursue this option and see it as counter-productive in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” the letter says.
The letter also states that if it is decided by the Food Vision group to reject these specific measures, then the INHFA is “willing to re-engage and help deliver vital progress for Ireland’s suckler beef farmers”.