DEAR SIR: I am writing in response to an article which appeared in the Irish Farmers Journal on 9 April 2020, titled: “ABP delivers on its Polish Beef Plan”. In my opinion, the article diverted from the real problems in the beef industry and was contradicted several times by different articles printed in the very same addition.

The article claimed the catalyst for the importation of Polish beef into the UK and Ireland was laid, at least partly, at the door of the Beef Plan Movement.

ABP has been building up their business and replicating the Irish model in Poland since 2011, now with three processing plants. The beef processing group, founded by Mr Goodman in 1961, has become one of Europe’s largest beef exporters with an annual turnover in excess of £500m.

Farmers, like other sectors in society, are entitled to exercise their constitutional right to peaceful protest and have a right to expect to get paid for their work. The Beef Plan Movement received support from farmers last summer because they highlighted the long-awaited need for farmers to get paid for the cost of production and receive a modest return for their work. How long more are the political classes and society going to sit back and make excuses for why the highest-quality food should be produced below the cost of production?

The EU cheap food policy has served the citizens of Europe well. However, on the other hand, CAP has failed to adequately support the primary producers’ income. In 1985, the CAP budget accounted for 70% of the total annual EU budget – compare this to the upcoming CAP budget, which is expected to be closer to 30%.

The CAP over the last 20 years has significantly steered farmers towards being more intensive, with little additional monetary reward.

Favourable decisions by governments and competition authorities in Europe and Ireland have contributed to ABP becoming what it is today, such as limiting restrictions for the transport of offal and the takeover of Slaney Foods and other processing facilities across Europe, which met the approval from competition authorities, to the dismay of many farmers.

As reported in the Irish Examiner at the end of 2017, confidential cabinet papers from 1987 released under the 30-year rule reveal that the government of the day sought to alter legislation with amendments specifically designed to benefit the Goodman International Group. At the time, Ray MacSharry, who was Minister of Finance, claimed significant IDA grants to a private company would result in increased slaughtering of animals at a time when there was already over-capacity in the sector. Ray MacSharry said: “The success of the project is likely to result in the failure of other firms; the project will increase substantially the dominant position held by Goodman. That would be detrimental to other processors and farmers.” It is fair to say that Mr MacSharry’s fears have been realised.

Retailers have grown substantially, which has given them significant buying power to source produce as cheap as they can, while investing in marketing to maximise what their customers will pay. Countless times, incorrect labelling issues have appeared in supermarkets without even a slap on the wrist.

The uncomfortable truth is this model has kept food prices almost stagnant for many years and allowed retailers and meat processors to continually gouge farmers and maximise profits without any intervention from the Irish and EU legislators who have leveraged trade deals and flooded the markets with cheap food, leaving farmers’ incomes as collateral damage while at the same time expecting farmers to protect our natural capital.