Ireland's beef industry has been affected by Brexit long before this weekend’s negotiations were due to take place, Angus Woods, the IFA's national livestock chair has said.

Woods was speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the IFA's "Brexit: the imperatives for Irish farmers and the agri-food sector", held in Goffs last week.

“Since the vote happened in June up until the end of 2016, we were estimating that there was €150m lost in the value of beef sales to the UK.

“There’s a lot of talk about negotiations starting but we’ve already felt the impact of this and it’s been a real hurt to farmers’ pockets.

“Moving forward, what do we need from it? First of all, we need a much higher level of clarity on how the process is actually going to take place.

“We need, from a beef farmer's point of view, to be certain that we will retain free access to the UK market.

“The UK is, and we hope to retain it as, our main market for our beef. We’re putting over 50% of our beef into the UK.”

New markets

Woods told the Irish Farmers Journal that while there is a lot of talk at the moment about new markets and China and that it’s good to be discussing those new markets, the reality is that it’s impossible to foresee that those new markets could replace 50% of what we produce in a short period of time.

He said that there needs to be clarity when it comes to whatever deal is negotiated in the end between the UK and the EU.

“We don’t believe that it would be beneficial for the British farmers to have such a scenario. All you would have is that lesser-quality product dragging down and depressing the market in the UK also.

“So it’s not good from an Irish beef farmer’s point of view and it certainly wouldn’t be good from a British beef farmer’s point of view.”

Read more

Watch: Bad Brexit could finish some Irish farmers - Healy

Troubling times for beef production as dairy farming exceeds itself