ICSA president Patrick Kent speaks at the 2018 AGM in Abbeyleix, Co Laois.
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ICSA president Patrick Kent called for a review of the beef grid at the organisation’s AGM in Abbeyleix, Co Laois, last week.
“ICSA believes that it is now urgent to move to payment on meat yield and that farmers should get some of the benefits from the fifth-quarter bonanza,” he said.
He added that recent Irish Farmers Journal analysis of Bord Bia’s export figures for offal and hides was not far off the €150/head of cattle he had suggested several years ago, only to be “laughed at”.
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Newly elected ICSA beef chair Edmund Graham added that the grading machines should be upgraded or replaced if they are to stay in factories.
“They seem not to be fit for purpose anymore, there’s too many problems with them,” he said, mentioning faulty bulbs and interference from sunlight and steam on the factory floors.
“There needs to be more supervision” of the machines, Graham added, noting cases of bonuses being lost at grading and recovered after negotiation and human verification with factory staff. However, he expressed a personal preference for a flat pricing system in which farmers would know the price of cattle “before they leave the yard”.
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ICSA president Patrick Kent called for a review of the beef grid at the organisation’s AGM in Abbeyleix, Co Laois, last week.
“ICSA believes that it is now urgent to move to payment on meat yield and that farmers should get some of the benefits from the fifth-quarter bonanza,” he said.
He added that recent Irish Farmers Journal analysis of Bord Bia’s export figures for offal and hides was not far off the €150/head of cattle he had suggested several years ago, only to be “laughed at”.
Newly elected ICSA beef chair Edmund Graham added that the grading machines should be upgraded or replaced if they are to stay in factories.
“They seem not to be fit for purpose anymore, there’s too many problems with them,” he said, mentioning faulty bulbs and interference from sunlight and steam on the factory floors.
“There needs to be more supervision” of the machines, Graham added, noting cases of bonuses being lost at grading and recovered after negotiation and human verification with factory staff. However, he expressed a personal preference for a flat pricing system in which farmers would know the price of cattle “before they leave the yard”.
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