A possible reduction in suckler cow numbers was “strongly rebuffed” by all stakeholders at the Food Vision beef and sheep group, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA) has claimed.

In a letter to the Irish Farmers Journal this week, ICSA general secretary Eddie Punch claimed that the stakeholder group has “proposed nothing yet”.

Punch claimed that the 17 measures included in a document titled Interim Report of the Food Vison Beef and Sheep Group were in fact “ideas for discussion put forward by the Department [of Agriculture]”.

He said the Department was “pushing hard to get quick conclusions” because the Government had “decreed that the agriculture sector must cut emissions by 25% by 2030”.

Consultation

However, Punch insisted that any agreement regarding climate change and the drystock sector “won’t happen without consultation with farmers”.

Punch maintained that the ICSA had challenged the meat processors on proposals to reduce the average slaughter age of cattle and had called on the factories to deliver more bull beef markets.

But he stressed that finishing cattle at an earlier age was likely to be a “big challenge” with meal at €450-plus per tonne.

The next meeting of the Food Vision beef and sheep group takes place on Thursday at the Department’s offices in Backweston, Dublin.