The beef sector and exports were on the agenda as members of the Beef Plan Movement met with Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed for the first time on Wednesday.

“We discussed a number of items. The first item we discussed is what we consider the anti-competitive practices in the beef sector,” Eamon Corley, chair of the group, told the Irish Farmers Journal.

These included the four-movement rule and feedlots, Corley said.

“We went through them with him and told him that the combined effect of the practices left the beef farmer at an extreme disadvantage and manipulates the free market of beef in this country,” he said.

Corley said that the Beef Plan Movement requested another meeting with the minister at the end of March and asked for inclusion on the TB forum, Beef Forum and other forums.

The group also told the minister that the Government has a responsibility to support exports, he said.

The meeting with the minister follows a protest by the group outside Minister of State Andrew Doyle’s office in Co Wicklow on Tuesday, with an emphasis on calf exports.

Tullamore

Meanwhile, a Beef Plan Movement meeting in Tullamore Mart on Tuesday night heard that the group has plans to hold special sales of weanlings and store cattle for Beef Plan Movement members who don’t finish their own cattle.

Group members who finish their cattle would then purchase these cattle and support other Beef Plan Movement members.

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