The Irish Farmers Association has urged the Minister for Agriculture and the Irish government to 'redouble their efforts' to secure the return of Irish beef to the Chinese market.
Ireland recently fulfilled the required criteria to attain OIE negligible risk status for BSE, which the IFA has said is a 'welcome recognition of the work and production standards on Irish farms'.
'Critical Issue'
However, the IFA's livestock chairman Brendan Golden said that a critical issue' for farmers is to see a 'meaningful return' from the marketplace in terms of beef prices.
"There is no justification for our beef prices to continue lagging behind the Prime Export Tracker Price by 13c/kg,” he said.
“The short-term concerns of Brexit interruption have been removed. We are on track to regain our negligible risk status for BSE, the numbers of cattle are extremely tight and supermarket demand is strong."
Golden added that factories must return meaningful price increases to align beef prices with the market returns, with the starting point a base of €4.00/kg based on the current Prime Export Tracker price.
© 2021 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click sign up to subscribe to Checkout.
