DEAR SIR:

I wish to clarify my comments in relation to quality assurance schemes because I am concerned that they have been misinterpreted.

In my address to the ICMSA AGM, I stated the following: “Quality assurance schemes are now part of farming but it is important to say that farmers have very mixed views on them and need to be convinced of their merits. Farmers need to see a dividend in terms of milk, beef and sheepmeat prices. We were told that these schemes were required to get into value-added markets but – as usual – the farmers did the work while the others got the dividend.

‘‘Bord Bia and our processors continually pronounce their sustainability credentials with expensive advertising and marketing campaigns, but the farmer supplier is now rightly asking: what about our financial sustainability? There is never any mention of farmers’ sustainability and the feeling has grown that these quality schemes are little more than waffle – and waffle at the expense of the farmers.”

I do not regard these schemes as marketing waffle and the point I was making was that all farmers need to see a reward for their efforts in participating in these schemes. At present, this is not happening, a case in point being the number of cattle that do not qualify for the quality assurance bonus. The criticism related to the failure of the dairy, beef and sheep industries to reward farmers for their efforts. The schemes are delivering in the marketplace but this is not being passed back to the farm gate.

My comments reflect a very widespread impatience with a sector-wide system that sees numerous expenses and costs borne by farmers ‘‘‘up front’’ on the promise of sustained returns ‘‘down the line’’. Time after time in scheme after scheme, farmers have been told that investment and expenses must be borne (by them) if premium markets were to be sought or ‘‘value-added’’ to products and time after time. Farmers have reached into often near empty pockets to pay up on that promise.

The ICMSA and I clearly understand the logic and principle of quality assurance schemes and have defended it throughout the country, but the system is running into difficulty because farmers are not seeing the benefit of their investment in these schemes, in many cases, and this is the point that needs to be addressed.