The Irish Cattle and Sheep Association (ICSA) has used an online meeting with representatives of the Green Party as an opportunity to highlight the need for fairness in the supply chain.

Speaking after the meeting, ICSA president Edmund Phelan said farmers needed a fair price for their product in the marketplace and they had to be paid for delivering climate change benefits to society.

Transparency

Phelan said: “As well as stressing the importance of greater transparency along the food chain, the ICSA also underlined the need for enforcing labelling rules and weeding out unfair trading practices in the processing and retailing sectors.The focus must be on exposing excess profiteering and ensuring a level playing field, particularly for beef and sheep farmers.”

Farmers cannot shoulder the cost of climate change and the new Government will achieve nothing unless we have a fully funded CAP

On the EU’s recently published Farm to Fork strategy, Phelan said a greener EU could not be delivered unless it was properly funded. Quality produce to the highest standards could not be supplied without a fair price for farmers, he said.

Cost of climate change

“Farmers cannot shoulder the cost of climate change and the new Government will achieve nothing unless we have a fully funded CAP. It is clear that maintaining the family farm model is central to achieving our climate change targets,” Phelan said.

However, he added that the family farm model was in financial dire straits and needed to be adequately funded.

“The ICSA is committed to working with all parties as Government formation discussions evolve,” he concluded.