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ICSA HAS NOT AGREED TO ANY MEASURES ON BEEF VISION

Oct 24, 2022 | Latest News, Press Releases, Uncategorised | 0 comments

ICSA Beef chair Edmund Graham has confirmed that ICSA has not agreed to any of the proposed measures to reduce emissions at today’s meeting (Monday October 24) of the Beef Vision group.

“ICSA has reiterated that it will not accept any attempt to make sucklers the scapegoat for climate targets nor will it accept the suckler sector being treated less favourably than the dairy sector. ICSA argued very strongly that research on methane supports the contention that a stable national herd should be the primary goal of any strategy designed to help the global climate challenge, while at the same time having regard to the importance of a balanced outcome for rural communities. A key demand from ICSA is that farmers, including young farmers, must be able to establish or grow their businesses in the future.”

“ICSA also made it clear that it is impossible to assess any measure in the absence of concrete commitments for extra funding for the sector. ICSA put a lot of emphasis on the need to ensure that funding did not disadvantage farmers who wished to continue at sucklers.

ICSA also insisted that the beef finishing sector had to be a priority for public funding and that it was completely unrealistic to expect that farmers would finish cattle at a younger age when beef price was falling. ICSA highlighted the fact that it would be reckless to decimate the national herd and then to see the meat industry import raw material to supply markets given that international demand will not change as a result of decisions taken in Ireland.”

“ICSA also demanded that genotyping of calves destined for the beef sector would be strongly incentivised. It is not practical to expect cattle farmers to take on calves that might not be economic to rear or fatten. There is plenty of evidence that the genetic difference between two animals can be the difference between profit and bankruptcy in beef farming.”  

“It was agreed that an interim report would be supplied to the Minister but on the clear understanding that this is not the agreed final position of the group. It was agreed that further impact analysis would be required before any progress could be made and that in the beef sector, many, if not all, of the proposals put forward by the Department have a public funding implication.”

ENDS

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