Kerry ICMSA: ‘Clear Brexit Plan’ needed to safeguard local food exports to UK

THE decision of the UK to leave the EU will have serious implications for all sectors of the Irish economy including the agri-food sector and the Minister for Agriculture, Food & Marine along with his relevant cabinet colleagues needs to put a clear plan in place to address the many issues that are likely to arise when the Brexit is finally negotiated with the EU.

That imperative now becomes the context into which all our planning and projects must fit, according to the Chairperson of Kerry ICMSA, Kevin Galvin.

“ICMSA met with the Department of Agriculture, Food & Marine last week and, having had Minister Creedon to a National Council Meeting held in Dublin as recently as last Thursday, ICMSA is satisfied that the Department has identified all the issues from farm to processor to trading level that are likely to arise from a Brexit,” said Mr Galvin. “But there’s no room for any degree of complacency from here forwards, not in the context of €5 billion in food exports to the UK - €1.1 billion is beef and €1 billion is dairy produce. “We need clear and agreed plans. “It is important to emphasise that it will be at least two years before any of these issues become a reality, including any possible implications for farmer payments. But we need to be planning at this stage to ensure a smooth transition and, to this end, ICMSA believes that the Minister for Agriculture, Food & Marine should establish a co-ordinating group of Department officials and industry stakeholders so that clear plans and strategies are identified and agreed at an early stage.

“I cannot stress how important this for the Kerry region which is the State’s biggest food producing area and whose critical dairy sector has already suffered an economic loss of millions of Euro due to the collapse in milk price since 2014. Kerry would be responsible for massive amounts of our national food exports to the UK”, said the Lixnaw farmer.

The Kerry ICMSA spokesman said that, in the short term, the implications are likely to focus on exchange rate movements and both the Irish Government and the EU must understand that farmers cannot be expected to pay for any negative currency movements arising from the Brexit vote.

“The reality is that, in the past, food processors have simply passed back the impact of negative exchange rate movements and we now need to see our Farm Council take measures to protect farmers rather than food processors. Farmers are already in a prolonged income crisis and cannot be expected to take additional punishment.”

Kerry’s farming and agri sector have a long history of trading with the UK and I have no doubt that this will continue into the future provided the UK and EU regulators maintain the proper trading environment for it to continue”, said Mr Galvin.

Turning to last week’s meeting of the Dairy Forum, he said he could only conclude, with regret, that the Dairy Forum is failing dairy farmers down and that not a single policy initiative was agreed at the meeting that will lead to an increase in milk price. “Official Irish policy on the milk price collapse is one of waiting to see if something turns up and hoping for the best. The processors seem to be focussed on achieving their volume targets and if that meant low milk prices for farmers, then so be it.”