Minister Coveney hosted the second beef roundtable meeting on Tuesday (03/06/2014).
The main focus of the meeting was a presentation by Michael Dowling, who had updated his work on the implementation of the Beef Activation Group report. The roundtable received a number of updates from its first meeting in April, including:
Information on the development of a new platform on his Department’s website homepage which makes beef price information more user friendly for farmers. This is a key step in the development of the Beef Pricewatch App which is being worked on at present and will be available shortly;
An update by Bord Bia on its targeted €500,000 fund to intensify its marketing of Irish beef in the UK, Netherlands and Germany;
A presentation by the ICBF on its work and the essential contribution that better breeding can make to improving on farm profitability;
An explanation by Professor Gerry Boyle of Teagasc on the work that Teagasc is doing to disseminate information on best practice and efficient production to farmers.
The main focus of the roundtable was a report from Michael Dowling who had been requested by the Minister to update on the implementation of the Beef Activation group and consider any additional actions required.
In the course of his presentation, Mr Dowling recommended that consideration be given in particular to:
Improved transparency and timely communication on price and market specification between particularly suppliers and processors;
A formalised mechanism for ensuring that research, breeding and education remains consistent with evolving market realities;
The potential for Producer Organisations recognised under the EU’s Common Market organisation rules to play a role in building scale for farmers in the supply chain and building more professional relationships with the processing sector;
The possibility for more formalised contract arrangements between factories and their suppliers.
Commenting on Mr Dowling’s report, the Minister said “I would like to compliment Michael on an extremely comprehensive piece of work produced since the last roundtable. The report represents intensive consultation with the various stakeholders in the last few weeks and its recommendations provided us all with much food for thought. I have decided to publish the report to allow the parties present here today to reflect on the recommendations”.
(Source – Irish Farmers Journal – 03/06/2014)