A concrete date for the next meeting of the Beef Market Taskforce has not yet been officially set, according to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

In a statement to AgriLand, the department said: “The date of the next Beef Market Taskforce has yet to be confirmed.”

However, despite the lack of an official date yet, AgriLand understands that efforts are being made in the department to call a meeting before the end of this month, March.

The last meeting of the Beef Market Taskforce took place on January 9 last, which saw farm organisations, processor representatives and retailers in attendance.

During that meeting, rules and requirements under the Quality Payments Scheme (QPS) came in for treatment.

The general feeling among farm organisation representatives that attended Agriculture House that evening was that retailers did not view these requirements as absolutely set in stone.

Speaking to AgriLand after the meeting, Pat McCormack, the president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), said: “It was very useful to have the retailers there, and to see what their market requirements are.

Certainly, one would question the need to be so rigorous on the under-30 months, with a lot of them stating that under 36 months was sufficient for them.

Edmond Phelan, the president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), explained that only one of the retailers that attended the meeting was “adamant” that they wanted 30-month-or-less beef.

“The in-spec criteria was not as cut and dried as we had been led to believe,” Phelan remarked.