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Bord Bia and a number of farm organisations came under fire on Wednesday at an Independent Farmers of Ireland (IFOI) meeting.
A straw poll showed unanimous backing for the three speakers, Noel Long, Alo Mohan and Seámus Maye, to represent farmers through this organisation.
Key speaker Mohan launched a scathing attack on Bord Bia, calling the organisation out as “controllers of the system” by pointing out that the 30-month rule has “no basis in science whatsoever”.
They can say to Bord Bia that the four movements is removed, and that’s done in the morning
The four-movement rule for cattle was discussed and the group would like to see this rule abolished and called on the farm bodies to remove it.
“They don’t need to negotiate with Meat Industry Ireland (MII), supermarkets or the Government,” said Mohan. “They can say to Bord Bia that the four movements is removed, and that’s done in the morning.”
The IFOI has made calls to meet with Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed, an offer that has yet to be taken up. Mohan has taken this to be a signal to farmers that once they came off the picket line, they had accepted the negotiations.
Price
He argued that farmers are still not allowed to talk about beef prices: “You tell the Government that you want a fair playing pitch, that you’re not going to have a situation where they’ve decided on a plan that there’s going to be less farmers, that you have a Taoiseach that says that he’s going to eat less meat, that you have a whole cabinet that turns round and says he wants rid of you.”
Farmer views
More than 600 farmers were present at the meeting in Athlone. Fine Gael councillor Paraic Brady from Longford, said an injunction brought against him and Longford farmer Colm Leonard by C&D Foods has yet to be lifted.
“Nobody has given an explanation to us yet. They’ve informed us that our injunctions won’t be lifted,” he said.
“I’m here to find out, how come any meetings or negotiations can take place without our injunctions being lifted? It seems that MII have broken their deal by not lifting our two injunctions. Nobody has answered this to date.”
Two coaches of farmers from Waterford, Kilkenny and south Tipperary attended the meeting and one farmer said it was worth the journey if somebody would finally stand up for farmers. This was the fourth meeting of its kind to be held, after Waterford, Rathdowney and Ballinasloe.
Tom Egan, a Co Tipperary beef farmer, was the sole organiser of Wednesday nights meeting.
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