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Beef Industry

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 December 2020

Tuesday, 8 December 2020

Questions (33)

Holly Cairns

Question:

33. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the status of the beef task force and his response to criticisms from farming organisations on its slow pace and lack of engagement with farmers. [41695/20]

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Oral answers (6 contributions)

The Minister must be aware that beef prices continue to be unacceptably low. I am sure he will tell me about the leadership the task force is providing, the agreement in principle to support the protected geographical indication, PGI, application and the Bord Bia market price index. The reality, however, is the task force is a talking shop. It is unclear exactly how PGI will benefit farmers and there are significant ongoing low prices. Farmers, therefore, are not seeing any benefits during one of the hardest years ever and Brexit is around the corner. What does the Minister say to criticisms from farming organisations on the task force's slow pace and lack of meaningful engagement with farmers?

I thank Deputy Cairns for her question. I am disappointed at the outset to see the negative approach the Deputy is taking to the development of a PGI application for grass-fed Irish beef. I do not believe it reflects the positive dimensions of that initiative and what it can mean in terms of being able to try to promote our beef more abroad and, ultimately, try to add value to it.

The beef task force, which the Deputy referenced, was established to provide the leadership to develop a sustainable pathway for the future of the beef sector. The task force provides a robust implementation structure for commitments entered into in the beef sector agreement of 15 September 2019 last year, and it has timelines and includes strong stakeholder engagement. To be clear, the majority of the membership of the task force are farmer representative bodies. They are there to reflect and represent farmers' interests and do so robustly.

There have been six meetings of the task force to date and the next meeting is scheduled to be held later this month. I note that work has continued steadily towards fulfilling all the actions of the agreement, despite the Covid-19 crisis, which added a further layer of complexity and a significantly challenging working environment for the task force. Full details of the actions, progressive updates and meeting minutes are available on the website of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

As part of the agreement, three specific consultancy studies, all of which relate broadly to market transparency, were commissioned. While these reports are behind schedule due to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, my understanding is that they are progressing well. Two of the studies, one on competition law and the other on market and customer requirements, will be discussed at the next task force meeting.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to address the task force in September. At that meeting, I emphasised that constructive and meaningful engagement across this group is essential to maintaining and developing the sector in a sustainable way, which adds value at all stages of the supply chain, but particularly and importantly for the primary producer.

I believe the sector can rise to the many challenges facing it and that the task force has an important role to play. I look forward to seeing continuous strong engagement from the task force as its work progresses.

The negativity the Minister points out I am expressing is with regard to the PGI in terms of how it can benefit farmers. It is not regarding the bigger picture the Minister is painting. I believe the broad reaction is that this is about them. The reason we can get a PGI is because of their practices but it is not benefiting them. That is where the negativity lies. It is important to point that out.

Regarding the task force, farmers feel they are again being sidelined in the process. Just two weeks ago, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association wrote to the chairman of the beef task force demanding more urgency and expressed its frustration at a lack of engagement on Brexit. Farmers are consistently pointing out low prices and have in the past protested about the prices they are getting compared to UK prices. They are raising concerns that the processors are not holding up their end of the beef sector agreement and are waiting for a response from the Minister's Department.

The task force has been in place for over a year now and practices like the four-movement and 30-months rules and insurance deductions still have not been addressed. Fair prices are in the national interest. We should be protecting those interests, not those of beef barons. Fair prices would keep people on the land, offer the next generation the opportunity to stay on the land and support a rural and social economy. We need a significant change in our response to this.

Coming out of the agreement signed at the beef task force of September last year were 37 separate actions. Of these, 20 have now been completed, six are in progress and one still is to be commenced, while ten are ongoing actions that are continuing.

I will go back to the initial point I made that the task force is primarily composed of farmer representative organisations and they have got fully behind, for example, the PGI grass-fed application, which I recently submitted to Europe. It was agreed with consensus and with the full support of the beef task force. The reason the farmer representatives signed up to that is because they see the merit in going down that route and, of course, we must push, advocate and market it in a way that, hopefully, after it is successful, delivers for farmers on the ground and in terms of beef prices. Certainly, it is a strong forum in terms of representing beef farmers going forward and I will continue to work closely with it to ensure it is effective.

As I said, I do not reject the idea or the prospect of the PGI status. I believe it is important. My point was to ask how does it benefit farmers. We still have not realised how that will happen. The core issue remains the industry is out to get as much profit as possible and continues to give low prices to farmers and treat workers poorly. This is facilitated by Government after Government and we have an opportunity to change now that we have new Ministers.

The scale of Covid-19 outbreaks in meat plants illustrated existing underlying issues in the sector before the pandemic. We were all aware of the unsustainably low prices and now we have a clearer picture of the horrendous conditions in which people are working. These two things are intrinsically linked and speak to how the industry treats people, both workers and farmers.

During the summer, the German agriculture minister pointed out that low prices do not fit with sustainability. She linked low prices with pressures on animal welfare, working conditions in meat processing plants and farmers' incomes. It is obvious there are clear parallels to be drawn here and they need to be addressed. To resolve the many issues and injustices in this sector, the Minister needs to tackle the power and privilege given to the meat processing sector and he needs to do it now.

I can assure Deputy Cairns I am absolutely committed to doing everything I can as Minister to support our farmers and support a fair income for them. That is why I worked strongly with the beef task force and the farming organisations to move the PGI forward. That is obviously something we must get approval for at European level and then ensure, in time, that we work to have it benefit farmers.

It is also why for the first time, through that beef task force, I have also secured and allocated €6 million, specifically, to develop a suckler beef brand, which I believe is important in trying to better promote our suckler beef sector. I also point the Deputy to the most recent budget where I secured an 11% increase over last year's budget, specifically to go towards farmers and to support schemes which underpin their income. That was significant and widely welcomed for them as well.

Another key initiative I have as Minister is to introduce a food ombudsman to try to bring more price transparency into the food supply chain to ensure a mechanism is in place where we can trace what is happening in international markets where our produce is being sold to try to ensure the price is being delivered back to farmers at farm gate level.

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