The resumption of auction rings at marts this week under the new Department of Agriculture “safe sale” conditions is welcome. While the protocols are detailed and restrictive in order to protect people, it’s a significant step towards getting this essential service back up and operating again. The IFA president strongly encouraged farmers to support their local mart.

“Marts provide an essential service to farmers and the agricultural community in terms of the livestock trade. They provide open and transparent market price, competition and security of payment,” he said.

“While online trading has been a great help and is certainly part of the future for marts, the closure and restrictions on the trade this spring havee hit the livestock sector, marts and farmers.

“The spring is peak trading season for cattle and a lot of this trade has been lost. IFA commends the efforts of the marts and their representative bodies to re-open the services as soon as possible. It is essential we have a strong mart service for the summer and autumn periods.”

IFA national livestock chair Brendan Golden said the marts, as an essential service provider, have a very strong case to make for assistance due to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

He said: “IFA strongly supports the case for an amnesty on rates, Government assistance with insurance costs, grant aid for investment in IT and online technology trading developments in the marts”.

IFA president Tim Cullinan said that letters issued to over 200 complainants by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) recently treated farmers with contempt.

“If the CCPC thinks they have washed their hands of this matter, they are a long way wrong,” he said. On May 22, IFA’s legal representatives wrote to CCPC chair Isolde Goggin, demanding a response to scores of complaints made to the Authority about the beef sector over the last 12 months. The Authority had failed to even respond to the complaints.

“IFA pointed out that the Authority was failing in its functions. We demanded they let IFA and farmers know the outcome of their complaints. We were clear with the CCPC that if they continued to ignore the complaints, we would seek a judicial review and take an action against them for damages caused to farmers’ livelihoods as a result of its failure to carry out its functions. We learned that rather than investigating the complaints, it took the CCPC all this time to decide to do nothing, without even an investigation. It’s pathetic,” he said.

“IFA’s legal team is now reviewing the correspondence from the Commission to explore what legal and other options are open to us,” he said.

“In our recent review of the beef sector, economist Jim Power concluded that it was in everyone’s interest to have an investigation to clear up the matter once and for all. However, the CCPC won’t even try to use its considerable powers to try and seek evidence, despite a huge number of complaints and considerable public disquiet,” he said.

Pig processors must stop price cuts

IFA pig committee chair Tom Hogan called on all pig factories to stop the cuts to price and return some degree of stability to the marketplace. The pig price has been cut by 4c/kg on eight occasions in the last three months, dropping from a strong price in early February of €1.96c/kg, to today’s price of €1.64c/kg.

“The unprecedented worldwide pandemic has had drastic effects on many food-to-market channels. The foodservice sector in particular has been reduced to near closure, which has affected pig meat.

“The increase in retail sales has offset some of this reduction, and the underlying demand for pork and bacon still remains as strong today as it did pre-COVID-19,” he said.