THE president of the IFA John Dillon has pledged to continue the campaign to pre- vent factory owners from importing low cost beef from South America.
Mr Dillon’s pledge came after what he described as a ‘useful’ meeting with the directors of the Queally Meat Group last week. The meeting took place following an IFA protest by some 300 farmers at the plant in Naas, Co Kildare. More than 50 farmers occupied the offices of the Queally Group during the 10 hour long protest.
The IFA head claimed that there had been a full and frank exchange of views at the meeting on the issue of beef imports from South America.
“I conveyed to Peter Queally and Dan Browne the depth of anger among beef producers in this country who have seen prices collapse in the last six weeks,” said Mr Dillon. “Meat factories have cut cattle prices by €150 per head since June, leav- ing over 50,000 beef farmers in a loss- making situation.”
“The IFA is demanding that Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan introduce proper labelling at all hotels, restaurants and ca- tering outlets,” he continued.
Earlier in the week Mr Dillon accused meat factories of “stabbing Irish farmers in the back” over the slaughter of beef, be- lieved to originate in Brazil, in the Kildare factory.
Indeed, questions have also been raised
from many sectors of the farming com- munity about the proper labelling of beef imported from South America and the pos- sibility of placing a quota on the amount of beef that can be imported.
Meanwhile, the president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Association, Malcolm Thompson, has also joined the fight against beef imports from South America. Mr Thompson travelled to Derry last night to join a protest against the sale of Brazilian beef in supermarkets in Northern Ireland.
“We need to send a clear message to our World ‘Trade Organisations negotiators that Irish farmers will not tolerate the deci- mation of our industry any longer and beef needs to be treated as a nationally sensitive product,” said Mr Thompson.