We need a plan to get poorer stock out of system

I SHARED a conversation with a mart manager over the weekend which probably encapsulates how many in the beef trade now see the end of 2018.

Factory prices for our beef are well on the wrong side of the EU average, poor quality dairy-cross stock multiplying across the entire system as dairy expansion is allowed to develop unchecked, and the suckler man demoralised and paralysed as those dairy animals clog factory gates.

Left out from the above list is the shipping trade, left out because this mart man believes, as do many others I have spoken to, that it has the potential to release some of the pressure in the system caused by those increasing dairy numbers.

The belief among many is that there exists a huge disparity in priority between shipping and the factory trade when it comes to the Department of Agriculture and the Government. This mart man was adamant on this point.

“Go back over the years, how many times have you seen the meat factories getting grants? They got money for consolidation, they got grants to put in the grading machines, they get development grants, Bord Bia touts their wares across Europe, the EU guarantees intervention. What do shippers get? Red tape and endless delays,” he claimed.

“If quality beef finishing in Ireland is to survive, we need a fully motivated shipping agency.”

Figures from the Department show that to the start of November this