Beef plants hammer down test fee

By Paul Mooney and Regina Fogarty

Most of the country's major beef plants have hammered out new deals giving cheaper BSE testing of older cattle. The reduction in testing fees - which the factories pass on to farmers - is going some way to counter the fact that from this week all cattle over 30 months must be tested.

Most of the bigger plants have cut the levy from approximately €22 to €15.13 per head. Kepak Clonee is charging €15.73. New arrangements are likely to emerge at other plants over coming days.

The changes come after the Department ended the subsidy that it was paying for the testing of certain categories of older cattle and in the process allowed the plants to make their own individual arrangements with laboratories.

Whereas originally only Enfer Laboratories was approved to test it now faces competition from the Irish Equine Centre and Advanced Micro Services.

IFA livestock chairman John Bryan welcomed the reduction in individual test fees and said that they could be reduced far more. "Based on recorded profitability of one operator the test could be done for under €10 per head,'' he claimed.

He noted that most factories were charging an identical levy for the test. "To bring real competition the factories should not operate it as a levy on farmers,'' he said.

Meanwhile, after meeting a number of the major beef plants about prices, Bryan said that there was no market basis for factories to go below the current quoted prices of €2.63/kg (94p/) for R grades and €2.52/kg (90p/lb) for O grades.

"Based on market returns, factories can maintain prices at current levels. Factories have already cut prices by 22c/kg (8p/lb) and any further reduction would only undermine our market selling price in the UK,'' he said.