The new Agri-Food Regulator should be allocated a “higher budget” to deliver “real results” according to the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA).
The ICSA believes the current €4 million budget allocated to the AgriFood Regulator Niamh Lenehan is a “start” but that the office will require the right “resources and skilled staff” in place to make a difference.
The organisation, which met today (Friday, July 21) with the AgriFood Regulator believes that transparency is the key to “unlocking the unfairness in the food chain”.
ICSA president, Dermot Kelleher, said it had asked the regulator to conduct an examination into the economics of imported beef.
He said the organisation had also asked for “transparency about what is the purpose of the 14,000 tons of imported beef in the first three months of 2023”.
“It is surprising that a country that exports nine out of every 10 tons of beef produced in Ireland should also have recourse to importing beef.
“A similar exercise needs to be carried out in respect of imported lambs,” Kelleher urged.
He said that the organisation had highlighed to the new regulator a range of issues of concern and said chief among these was “understanding why the beef and lamb food chains are not delivering a fair price to the primary producer.”
ICSA
The ICSA president believes the regulator’s “priority task is to deliver transparency on the fifth quarter”.
Kelleher added: “The Bord Bia tracker would suggest that, over the past year, the value of offal and hide has been worth in the range of 41c to 53c/kg carcass equivalent.
“The problem is that Bord Bia estimates are based on USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) data, which may or may not properly reflect the values in the European context.”
He said that Bord Bia had acknowledged that the offal values “are reflective of international markets”.
“The potential to add value to the fifth quarter is very much already in place in the Irish processing sector, with links to energy, cosmetics, and pet food.
“Even if we accept that 50c/kg is the value, this suggests that offal alone is delivering €180/head to the average carcass of 360kg. Farmers do not get paid directly for this,” he added.
The ICSA president said the organisation is adamant that there is enough data to suggest that beef processing and retailing “are both deriving margins from the beef.”