The Agri-Food Regulator has written to Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon to seek an urgent meeting to discuss the Regulator’s request for additional powers.

The regulator’s CEO Niamh Lenehan was speaking about its board’s request submitted last September while at the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) horticulture and potato growers' meeting on Tuesday.

These additional powers would allow for the regulator to compel businesses in the agri-food supply chain to provide price and market information for reporting purposes.

Lenehan said that a number of agri-food businesses did not provide this requested data.

“Similar to the regulator’s initial efforts to produce a report on the egg sector, the production of the envisaged horticulture report has not been possible, as a number of businesses did not provide the requested data,” she said.

“While we were pleased to see all but one of the contacted retailers and wholesalers engage with the regulator and provide data, a number of other businesses across the supply chain have not yet provided data.”

Horticulture report

As a result, a report on the horticulture sector using only publicly available data is now being finalised, which the regulator said will be published shortly.

Agri-Food Regulator board chair Joe Healy said that the regulator is “hamstrung” without these powers with a view to improving transparency.

“The board is concerned that without these additional powers, we are unable to fulfil a core legislative function of the regulator, the publication of analysis of price and market data along the agri-food supply chain.

“We remain unanimously of the view that additional powers are essential for the regulator to address the issue of lack of transparency and information asymmetry in the agri-food supply chain.”

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