Fine Gael Senator, Tim Lombard has said that, geographically, the option of taking fallen animals to Northern Ireland “doesn’t work” for all counties.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue said that farmers with fallen animals should contact their animal collector who can take them to Northern Ireland to be rendered.
The situation arose following substantial increases to fees charged by renderers to animal collectors for the disposal of non-TSE tested fallen farm stock.
In the event of a farmer not being able to get a collector to remove a dead animal carcase, burial on farm may be considered, Minister McConalogue said earlier today (Wednesday, December 13).
Speaking after the minister’s comments today, Senator Lombard said he has “had calls from knackeries who have hundreds of animals for disposal”.
Northern Ireland
The option of using rendering facilities in Northern Ireland and issuing burial licences to farmers in exceptional circumstances is “helpful” in the short term, the senator said.
However, stressing that urgency remains around finding a resolution to the dispute, and that nobody should have to deal with having a decomposing animal on their farm, he said:
“Every day that this dispute is allowed to continue sees the number of fallen animals increase on farms across the country.”
The minister told Agriland that he has removed a previous 125km travel distance restriction that was in place, which specified the distance that animals for rendering could travel.
Animals can now, for example, can go into Northern Ireland, where renderers are accepting animals. The minister said this is an “available option” while the dispute is underway.
Fallen animals
Meanwhile, the animal health chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), TJ Maher said that the minister and his officials “cannot be bystanders in the fallen animal dispute”.
“There is a legal obligation on the minister in the EU Animal By Products Regulation to ensure an efficient fallen animal collection and disposal system is provided for farmers.
“The minister and his officials have failed to provide this,” he said describing the minister’s latest comments as “wholly inadequate in addressing the seriousness of the issue on farms”.
According to Maher, the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine (DAFM), has “provided over €10 million in subvention payments to knackeries over the past three years”.
Despite this, the IFA animal health chair said that “the best they can offer farmers now is advice to bury animals, which is far from ideal and not practical in a lot of cases”.
Maher said the minister and his officials must come forward with a review to identify the “most efficient mechanism which ensures farmers have a guaranteed collection system at competitive prices”.