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No sector is more exposed to a no-deal Brexit than the Irish beef producer.
With half the total Irish beef output sold to Britain – 250,000t, the possibilities for market chaos and a collapse in price are painfully clear.
So what can and should be done? Lots, is the straightforward answer.
In the event of the UK beef market descending into chaos because of sudden free access to beef from South America as the Irish Farmers Journal covered last week, the price consequences would be catastrophic for Irish beef farmers and, of course, the potential damage to the rest of Europe’s beef sector would be very significant.
The EU has shown a capacity in the past to mount significant emergency rescue packages in the beef sector.
How many remember the massive effort made in the autumn of 1974 following the awful summer of that year as well as the price collapse sparked by the re-imposition of duties on our beef going to continental EU markets? That was the first time beef intervention became available in Ireland and it was used massively.
The lessons from that time should be studied now so that if they are needed they can be swiftly applied
The Department of Agriculture did a magnificent job, though some sectors of the beef industry made fortunes out of the combination of the market collapse, the backlog of cattle waiting to be killed and the presence of a guaranteed price from Brussels.
The EU came to the rescue again during the catastrophic waves of BSE crises during the 90s and during the foot-and-mouth disaster in the early 2000s.
But alongside intervention during the years before the MacSharry and Fischler reforms that introduced the premium, as a direct payment, in compensation for an approximate 30% drop in the guaranteed price of beef, a system of export refunds operated which kept European beef competitive on international markets.
An Irishman, Tom O’Dwyer, was the head of animal products in the Commission at the time and he oversaw the operation of a superb example of successful market management on an enormous scale.
The lessons from that time should be studied now so that if they are needed they can be swiftly applied. The basics are clear. If the worst case happens, Irish beef is available to Britain. The market in Britain clearly has a need for it.
There is a long precedent for setting export refunds at a level that makes the product competitive in individual markets and the level can and has varied by the type of cut involved, so sirloins would have a different level of support to flanks. All of this expertise and experience is available.
Implementation
Now is the time to prepare to implement it if it is needed. In the meantime let’s galvanise the forces necessary to avoid an Irish beef collapse.
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