Editorial: Bord Bia chair embroiled in Brazilian beef controversy

Writing about dairy markets and the outlook for 2026 a few weeks ago, I started this editorial with this sentence: what a difference 12 months makes.

This week, it’s starting with what a difference a week makes. This time last week, we were looking at Bord Bia’s 2025 review of the food and drink performance.

On two occasions last week, I witnessed both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister of State Noel Grealish congratulating and heaping praise on Bord Bia on the huge work that they do for Irish agriculture and Irish farmers in their promotion of Irish food and drink around the world.

This praise was well deserved; €5 billion in meat and livestock exports and a reopening of the Chinese market in which Bord Bia played an integral role was heralded as a big positive for meat exports.

Last Friday, Bord Bia held its annual meat marketing seminar at the Heritage hotel in Co Laois, a must-attend event for anybody involved in the Irish meat industry.

The event was a huge success, with insightful presentations informed by data and expert analysis of the 2025 trade and what 2026 might look like for Irish beef producers.

Images of the best of beef cattle grazing green coastal pastures and fields were dotted throughout the day’s presentations, helping to enforce the view for attendees that Irish beef really is the best in the world.

Image is important, and nobody knows more about the importance of portraying a good one than Bord Bia.

The confirmation that its chair Larry Murrin’s company Dawn Farm Foods imported Brazilian beef for distribution to its customers is a bad image.

In my mind, the chair of Bord Bia should be standing up for Irish produce, extolling the benefits of Irish food production systems and backing Irish farmers along the way.

Importing Brazilian beef into Ireland, a country that is 700% self-sufficient in beef production, isn’t a good look for any Irish meat company, but when the director of that company is also the chair of the country’s meat marketing body, it’s bordering on inappropriate.

It’s important to highlight that nothing illegal has taken place here.

Over 200,000 tonnes of South American beef was imported into Europe in 2025, with 145 tonnes of that being Brazilian beef imported into Ireland. The Bord Bia chair’s statement to the Irish Farmers Journal pointed to just 1% of Dawn Farm Foods overall beef supply being Brazilian.

On the face of it, it looks small, but symbolically it’s huge. Perception is everything is a saying which encapsulates the last few days’ events, and it’s hard to paint any positive picture here.

Yes, we are a trading nation and trade is seen as positive, but given all the revelations about Brazilian beef production standards and meat recalls in the last few months, this doesn’t look good.

Farmer confidence in Bord Bia is important, and Bord Bia is currently engaging with farm organisations on a new quality assurance scheme which will put more emphasis on farmers’ compliance with the scheme.

Recent meat recalls in relation to Brazilian meat and farmers’ genuine concerns around the Mercosur trade deal have raised tensions.

There is no easy way forward with Larry Murrin at the helm of Bord Bia. Thursday’s emergency board meeting is expected to be a fraught affair. Farmers will be represented around that table by both IFA president Francie Gorman and ICMSA president Denis Drennan.

They are expected to lead the charge, with the outcome still uncertain. Up to this point, Murrin has adopted a stiff stance with an almost “nothing to see here” attitude, but Thursday’s emergency board meeting will dictate whether he walks the plank or walks out unscathed from his Brazilian endeavour.

Minister of Agriculture Martin Heydon could play an important role in his future. His comments on Tuesday on Mr Murrin “discharging his duties in a satisfactory manner to date” don’t exactly inspire confidence.

The Taoiseach Micheál Martin on the other hand, moved to defend the Bord Bia chair and his work in response to a leaders’ question on Wednesday from Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.

The Bord Bia chair is a ministerial appointment, so some difficult decisions could face Minister Martin Heydon before the week is out.

Reading Larry Murrin’s last line in his chairman’s statement in the 2024 Bord Bia annual report and accounts, he signs off on his statement saying: “The reputational strengths of our industry have been hard won and will remain at the heart of all we do in the years to come.”