On the Monday following the Brexit vote in June 2016, I was in Bandon Mart keeping an eye on the trade.

It’s one of a handful of sales that still stands out to me as the one where ringside confidence was the most unsteady. I’d seen store prices were back a good bit compared to the previous weeks amid uncertainty over long-term prices.

Now, we’ve seen plenty times since that it doesn’t take much to create upset when it comes to beef prices.

CAP has protected the Irish beef sector from the vagaries of the world market pretty much since we joined the free market in 1973.

Our competitors dwarf us in terms of scale and Europe’s agricultural policy ensured security from those larger competitors and gave guaranteed access to two internal markets in the UK and mainland Europe.

However, David Cameron’s decision to placate the Conservative Party in January 2013 by promising a referendum on EU membership means the world market has come to our doorstep and walked right into our largest outlet.

It’s been a decade since the Brexit vote, but from an Irish beef perspective it’s the next five or six years when we will feel the impact of the decade-old referendum result.

While eyes here have been focused on Brazil, the performance of both New Zealand and Australian beef in the UK so far this year is one to take note of.

New Zealand will have tariff-free access for beef from 2032 onwards, the Australians will increase year-on-year to 110,000t until 2033 and in the middle of that year; the shackles are off. Australia filled its 205,000t beef quota to China last week. That’s five weeks faster than they did it last year and almost four months ahead of when they reached that point in 2024.

Come 2033, will they decide to divert more of that beef towards the island of Britain?

Those timelines should coincide with a new CAP coming into effect and there’s likely to be a major call for supports to keep the sector going by the time that comes around.

That’s assuming there’s still an appetite for a Common Agricultural Policy in Brussels in five years’ time.

I could be completely wrong, but maybe it’s time to start working on a plan for the beef sector here for when those tariffs are lifted

What’s interesting about both Antipodean countries is the level of farmer input in both of their marketing bodies, Beef and Lamb New Zealand and Meat and Livestock Australia.

In effect, both are a combination of Teagasc and Bord Bia and through a farmer board structure, there’s better buy-in than we could possibly expect here.

I could be completely wrong, but maybe it’s time to start working on a plan for the beef sector here for when those tariffs are lifted.

It’s not quite the opportunity that dairy faced ahead of quotas being lifted, but a potential threat needs to be treated in a similar way and a path planned for how the Irish beef sector can future-proof itself in the face of increased competition.

After decades of getting by, last year gave a glimpse of what could be and some called it the great beef reset year

The co-operative movement means there’s a stronger chance of success in a central plan for the dairy sector so I wouldn’t be as confident when it comes to beef.

It’s still worth a shot though. After decades of getting by, last year gave a glimpse of what could be and some called it the great beef reset year but I fear the big reset is only a few years away and could cause more carnage than we’ve ever seen before.

Rather than keep walking towards a cliff edge, why not explore what other potential options are there.