Kuwait market to be opened for Irish beef - “If farmer prices don’t go up, new markets are no use” says Sligo expert

RESPONDING to today’s announcement that an agreement had been reached that will open up the Kuwait market for Irish beef, sheep meat and poultry, the Chairperson of ICMSA’s Livestock Committee has welcomed the news while stressing that unless the opening-up and development of these markets resulted in a speedy and marked improvement in beef price to the farmer producers, then the whole project becomes almost irrelevant from a farmer perspective and no more than a marketing exercise.

Des Morrison, an Enniscrone farmer and recognised beef expert, said that farmers were happy to recognise the skill and dedication of Ireland’s negotiators and the energy they brought to the efforts around sourcing and winning new markets to offset the threat to our traditional British markets, but he noted that, too often in the past, new markets had been won and opened-up with any benefits seeming to flow exclusively to the exporting factories and no improvement at all in the prices paid to the people who actually produced the beef.

The ICMSA Livestock Committee Chairperson said that the actual value of the work done in opening-up the Kuwaiti market would, and should, only be judged in light of the positive results it brought to the farmers - not overall trade statistics or marketing reports: “Farmers need to see upwards price movements on beef and if the Kuwait announcement helps there then that’s a positive, but otherwise it just becomes a marketing exercise, it’s simple as that.”