With beef steady at a reasonable level, discussions in the beef forum have moved beyond price and can focus on working to develop a model that delivers for the Irish beef industry. With cattle numbers predicted to remain tight for the rest of the year, a period of stability is in prospect and there is an opportunity to tackle difficult issues.

One thing that farmers and factories are completely agreed on is the need to develop export markets, and there is an urgency with this given the impact of dairy herd expansion.

An extra 150,000, perhaps 200,000, cattle will be available for processing in a couple of years and there is no point chasing a market for them when the beef is in the store.

Progress slow

Despite the best efforts of the Minister and undoubted hard work of Department officials, progress remains disappointingly slow.

Limited access to the US and no immediate prospect of access to China, despite their announcing an end to the BSE ban back in February, demonstrates that the situation on the ground doesn’t match the regular upbeat press comments from the Minister.

The linking of the extra cattle in the system to specifications could be interpreted as the factories putting a marker down that, when there are plenty of cattle about, they will be tough on specification.

At the same time, we have to recognise that many export certificates to non-EU countries have a 30-month age limit. It is clear that there is an impasse between the factories and farmer representatives here, and it is difficult to see how agreement will be reached in resolving it.

Consensus better

As alluded to earlier, if there are enough cattle about, agreement won’t be necessary as factories would be in a strong enough position to act unilaterally. It would be so much better to get consensus, particularly with the weights amnesty only scheduled to last until the end of this year.

A trick is being missed here. We have to respect that factories know what their customers want and if export certificates are restricted to 30 months, we begin to understand the case being made by factories, notwithstanding the difficulties that creates for farmers with later maturing cattle.

Of course, many would say factories should be more robust in engaging with their markets on specification issues.

We are led to believe that genomics can create a long-term solution, but, in the meantime, factories need to help farmer suppliers understand precisely why specification is such an issue.

We might have expected the price transparency comment from last November’s agreement to help here: a “new market index to be developed based on the different beef categories on the main markets served by Irish product”.

We understand that the factories cooperated fully and assisted Bord Bia prepare a comprehensive overview of Irish beef markets based on sales from the last two years. This was discussed at the forum meeting. However, while informative, more could be done.

Factory prices paid to farmers are published – if we had the same information on beef cuts, it would better enhance farmers’ understanding of specifications.

US model

It’s not impossible as the model is already in place in the USA through the USDA beef cut-out volume and value reporting system.

That allows everyone to see the individual prices and volumes of different cuts of beef that are sold daily and on a state-by-state basis. Imagine what it would do for farmer understanding if they could see different prices reported for heavy loins compared with in-spec ones.

Or if they could see manufacturing beef coming from cattle under 30-month-old in Japan compared with the same product in Europe, from cattle over 30 months old cattle.

The future for Irish beef is in our factories, selling in the highest value markets available at the best price, with farmers producing the product that services these markets. Confidence is built on knowledge. There is work to be done.