The announcement this week on the opening of its office in Singapore by Bord Bia that it expects China to be Ireland’s next €1bn market is good news for the parts of the agri-food industry that can access it. It has been a superb outlet for the dairy industry and almost the single-handed saviour of the beleaguered pigmeat industry last spring when remaining pig farmers were facing extinction. There is also plenty of opportunity for smaller niche food products, but Irish beef remains absent from the Chinese table.

No blame can be attached to Bord Bia or the Irish Government other than perhaps the overselling of previous engagements in early 2015 as a sign that commercial trade was imminent. The Chinese will work at a pace that suits them and we also have to recognise that just about every nation in the world is chasing the Chinese market. Therefore the relatively low-key trade mission led by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed can be viewed as trying to give the approval process a push.

Now that the pressure has eased on pigs and milk seems to have turned a corner, we need to consider where our beef is going. The problem with Irish beef is that it is a premium product that is forced to compete on price in a commodity export market.

Teagasc says this needs €4.60-€4.80/kg to be sustainable yet there is no chance of the market returning to this anytime soon. Does that mean Ireland can no longer afford to produce a high-spec, high-quality specialised beef product, based on grazed grass? If the answer is yes, then we need to level with our farmers who carry the burden of risk in the cost of production with at best a meagre return.

Of course the Teagasc figure can be tackled and the Irish Farmers Journal BETTER Farm programme and the Suckler Beef programme in the north demonstrate how. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t need more from the market and there can be no denying that in view of the price achievable in the UK for UK-origin beef, this suggests we are content to accept second-rate prices for the same or better top-rate product as that produced in the UK.

It isn’t enough to look around the 28 countries that make up the EU and say we could be worse. We cannot compare ourselves with the still-developing eastern European countries, most of which don’t have a specialist modern industry like has developed in Ireland over the past 20 years.

Ireland, the UK and parts of France are unique in Europe in that we have a grass-based steer and heifer beef system, not intensively produced bull beef. We need to benchmark against the best and for some time now that has been the UK and Scotland in particular.

With sterling at its weakest in years, the gap in our price and the UK price is around 55c/kg. A year ago it was around €1/kg, peaking at €1.20/kg. The UK has done a fabulous job using national sentiment and Red Tractor branding to create a preference for UK-origin beef. This works well in a market that has a deficit of production over supply as is the case in Britain. With the brand values Irish beef has, surely we could aspire to closing this gap if not eliminating it?

Bord Bia has worked hard at building the Q Mark and Origin Green.

However, we have to ask how successful have they been in transforming the perception of Irish beef from low-cost commodity to the premium product that it is. Also, do they have the resources? We can also challenge the factories, many of which are located both sides of the Irish Sea, on how well they are selling the Irish product compared with their colleagues in Britain.

With retail beef prices back 32p/kg in the 12 weeks to the middle of August, we might have expected a squeeze on British cattle prices. Instead, there was a 50p/kg surge on farmgate prices since April, with prices trading ahead of the five-year average and continuing to increase up to last week.

The Bord Bia levy has been the same since 1994. Doubling the levy with perhaps a processor contribution as is the case in the north and Britain plus perhaps a Government contribution would enable a serious marketing push on Irish beef in the UK. We don’t want to barge deeper into the UK market to displace UK product with lower prices, rather we need to get more for Irish to reflect the production values that go into delivering Irish beef cattle to our factories.