Sparks flew across the Dáil chamber on Wednesday as Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue came under a cross-party attack on proposals for a dairy cow cull.
The Rural Independent Group tabled a motion calling on the Government to shelve any cull scheme until a financial impact assessment is conducted, leaving a lonely Minister McConalogue in the Government benches to defend his position.
Independent TD Michael Collins said “culling cows is not the solution” to Ireland’s climate goals and warned that the proposals have left the country a “laughing stock”.
“There are many ways to reduce carbon emissions [other] than this obsession with the national herd,” Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne added.
Social Democrat leader Holly Cairns TD highlighted the influence of processors in the debate on the national herd and said that if farmers were guaranteed fair prices, there would not be a need for more cattle.
Cairns’ comments come as processor concern regarding a cow cull continues to build.
The board of Dairy Industry Ireland (DII) is due to meet this Thursday to frame its response to a discussion document on the proposed cow cull, shared with stakeholders of the Food Vision dairy group.
The document was penned by a Department of Agriculture working group and sets out nine principles around which any cow cull would be built. These include that any cull would be voluntary and for a set period.
Where the reduction in stock numbers is partial, then a limit on the number of breeding ruminants would be set for the holding for the duration of the contract. Crucially, those in the cull scheme would be prohibited from leasing land to another livestock farmer with breeding ruminants.
It is understood that DII is exploring a cost assessment of any dairy cow cull for the rural economy.
According to an Irish Farmers Journal survey, 79% of milk suppliers are opposed to a dairy cull, but 9% said they would take out all cows if the package was sufficiently attractive.
SHARING OPTIONS