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Beef farmers are being thrown to the wolves, according to joint chair of the Beef Plan Movement Hugh Doyle.
In a letter to the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed seen by the Irish Farmers Journal this week, Doyle questioned the minister as to why more Irish beef hasn’t landed in China and the US.
“Due to swine flu [African swine fever] in China and the spread to Cambodia, Vietnam, North and South Korea the price of pork in China has doubled to 360c/kg. China is culling 40,000 sows daily which is the equivalent of the Irish herd every four days. This is creating a massive shortfall of animal protein in this area, estimated to be 19m tonnes in China alone by the end of 2019.
“Minister, China are travelling the world looking for beef. They signed a contract with the UK to import British beef but the UK itself is only 60% self-sufficient, so how can they fulfil that contract? Argentina announced that they have almost double their beef exports to China in the first four months of 2019.
“Minister, where is Ireland in all this? The tonnages of Irish beef being exported to China is currently small and insignificant. The Irish beef export contract with China was signed over two years ago and as with the USA contract very little has been exported since. Why is this? [sic],” he asked Minister Creed in the letter.
Big problem
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal about the letter, Doyle said: “There’s going to be a deficit of animal protein in the world that we haven’t seen since the 1940s. The problem is only getting bigger.
“We should be selling 100,000t into China, I want to know the reason why [we’re not],” he said.
Meanwhile, the other joint chair of the Beef Plan Movement Eamon Corley told the Irish Farmers Journal that in the last few weeks it feels like the Government is trying to “eradicate” beef farmers.
“The €100m package is being related to reducing suckler numbers. We were always of the opinion that it should compensation farmers for their losses,” he said.
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