There has been a mixed reaction from farm organisations to the aid package being prepared for the EU agri-food sector by the European Commission.
The package is believed to be worth €80 million; of this, it is expected to include Aids to Private Storage facilities worth €30 million for dairy products and €45 million for beef and lamb.
ICMSA reaction
Reacting to the announcement, Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) president Pat McCormack said that the funding being allocated is “so obviously inadequate that it bordered on an insult”.
McCormack said the package completely fails to recognise the pressures on farmers and the wider food industry at this time.
“A quick sum indicates that the support package is equivalent to €8 per farmer in the EU at a time when food markets and prices are experiencing an unprecedented shock, the food services sector has collapsed and we’re about to enter our peak production period for milk.
“This will be interpreted as an insult and the commission and the member states had better look up their definition of ‘essential’ and come back with a package that indicates that they understand what’s needed and that it’s needed right now,” McCormack said.
IFA reaction
Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan said the package announced today, Wednesday, April 22, by European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski “will not be nearly enough to support agriculture, particularly beef farmers, through the current crisis”.
“While the Aids to Private Storage (APS) Scheme is an acknowledgement of the problems facing the sector, the funding won’t be sufficient. It amounts to less than €8 for every farmer in Europe,” he said.
“I am concerned that the EU Commission appears to be taking agriculture and the food supply chain for granted.
“Farmers and all those in the chain have been working very hard to keep food on the table, but beef farmers are now in crisis and dairy markets are under severe pressure,” he said.
We believe the increased cost of storage for beef and dairy product has not been adequately taken into account in this scheme.
“We need our agriculture minister to push for a significant increase in the commission allocation,” he said.
“The minister also needs to come forward with national funding to support beef farmers,” Cullinan concluded.
ICSA reaction
Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) president Edmond Phelan has welcomed the announcement of Aids to Private Storage for beef and lamb but says that the overall effort from the EU falls very short of what is required.
“It is beyond belief that the EU continues to take such a laid back approach to the greatest economic catastrophe since 1929.
The meat sector in particular is under immense pressure, due to the fact that prices were only beginning to improve from the disastrous lows of 2019.
“The closure of food service across Europe has been spectacularly damaging to an export-dependent sector like Irish beef.”
Phelan noted that 31% of Irish production goes into food service and some of the manufacturing product also ends up in food service so anything that counteracts that has to be a step in the right direction.
“However, the real measure of APS will be whether it brings an improvement in prices to the primary producer.
From a farmer’s perspective, beef price needs to rise substantially. At current prices, farmers will not feed cattle anymore.
“ICSA will be keeping the pressure on the Government for a proper income support package for farmers which needs to be funded by extraordinary EU funding.”
Moving the deck chairs within the current CAP framework is not a serious effort to deal with an extraordinary crisis, the president contended.
“Farmers are close to the brink in relation to cash flow and no business can endure without that. This needs to be a priority of government formation talks and it is disappointing that so little has been heard from any party in terms of Covid policies in respect of the farming sector,” Phelan concluded.
MII reaction
Meat Industry Ireland also gave a brief reaction, saying: “While it is important that the European Commission is now engaging on supports to address the major market disruption caused by Covid-19, based on initial information on the level of supports in the meat sector, the proposed measures fall well short of what is needed to tackle the extent of the problem and scale of market imbalance, particularly for beef.”