With numbers on its network of WhatsApp groups now claimed to have passed the 10,000 mark, the Beef Plan Movement says it is preparing work to establish producer groups in each county.

The ultimate aim is for the group to have 40,000 members to be able to better control the cattle kill and return a higher price to beef farmers.

“We have lost control of the beef industry,” was the message from the national spokesperson for the group, Co Meath farmer Eamonn Corley, last Wednesday 5 December in Mullingar.

“We are relying on handouts from the Government to survive. [Farmers have] all of these inspections and the paperwork that these Government bodies throw at us and then you have to ring up the factory and beg them to take cattle from us.

“If that wasn’t bad enough, the factories will cut you for overweight cattle, overage cattle ... Any excuse,” Corley said. “We want factories to pay us the cost of production plus a margin,” he added.

Referencing the exclusive revelation in the Irish Farmers Journal regarding factories being fined for excessive trimming of animals, Corley said the actions of factories have been bad enough to farmers but now “they are robbing us too”.

Co Westmeath representative David Whelehan said the need for action has never been as great, with optimism at an all-time low among beef farmers. “Nobody makes money out of what we are doing ... our beef industry is in serious trouble and we are on life support,” Whelehan said, before adding that if farmers do not mobilise as part of this group then the life support will “be switched off”.

The leaders of the group are encouraging farmers to sign up beef and suckler farmers in “every townland” to grow its numbers.