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A DELEGATION OF Chinese inspectors was prevented from visiting a meat processing plant in Athleague, Roscommon today due to a protest organised by a small number of beef farmers.
The Beef Plan Movement said the demonstration was not authorised by its central committee.
Inspectors had been due to inspect the Kepak factory in Athleague today as part of a visit to approve Irish factories to export sheep meat to China.
However, some protesters continued their barricade which led to the inspection not taking place.
A spokesperson for Kepak said that senior management at the company had met with leaders of the Beef Plan Movement on Saturday night to try to ensure the inspection was not blocked.
Further consultation with the Department of Agriculture also failed to make progress and led to Kepak cancelling the inspection, which the company had hoped would result in its meat being ‘Chinese export approved’.
“Given the uncertainty around Brexit and the current weak meat market across Europe, China is one significant growth market that offers great potential for Irish beef and lamb,” the spokesperson said.
“This behaviour today, by people who claim to represent the interests of farmers is a massive own goal and the cost of the failure to get this site Chinese export approved will be primarily borne by West of Ireland farmers for many years,” the spokesperson added.
However, Beef Plan Movement has said it didn’t organise the blockade and was critical of the decision to obstruct the inspection.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Chairman of Beef Plan Movement Eamon Corley said he was not aware that a delegation of the group had met with Kepak.
The Chinese inspection, Corley said, should go ahead, and he added was “disappointed” that the audit had been blocked by protesters.
The Beef Plan Movement “recognises the value of the Chinese market,” he said.
Corley also offered to “use his influence to ensure that the inspection does go ahead”.
Tensions have increased in recent days as farmers continue to protest meat plants across the country.
A Garda spokesperson confirmed today that a man had been arrested at a meat processing plant in BallyJamesduff, Cavan, while on Friday a farmer drove a tractor into a wall during a demonstration.
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Talk about shooting yourselves in the foot. That plant now won’t be exporting to China which will have a direct and significant impact on the beef farmers who are picketing the plant
@Tweety McTweeter: Easy to turn it around and say it wouldn’t have come to that if they were getting a fair price for their livestock. 2 wrongs and no winner in this scenario
@Tweety McTweeter: it doesnt really matter the way things are….why would you supply a product at below cost it takes to manufacture….
@Tweety McTweeter: I suppose if you are being paid less than the price of your goods then do you really care about the chinese market, after all there will not be farmers to supply cattle if they leave the land.
@Tweety McTweeter: Hope bord na gcon dont get wind of their visit.
@Tweety McTweeter: according to the article this inspection was to gain approval for the export of sheep meat, not beef. So the protesters were in effect interfering in the market of another group. They have scored a massive own goal by turning a group that would most likely support them (sheep farmers) against them by ruining their chances of expanding into the Chinese market.
@Tweety McTweeter: If Brexit leads to a drop in demand for beef because tariffs make Irish beef less attractive to Britain, then there will be surplus volume in the market which will depress prices. If China becomes a future market option then price will be supported.
@Niall O’Sullivan: only saw the sheep comment now. Beef farmers interfering in the livelihoods of sheep farmers?
@Vocal Outrage: Do you honestly think Sheep, Pig or whatever Farmers are getting paid a fair price for their livestock!?!! Hardly!! If anything the Sheep farmers will be watching keenly to see if they can get an improved deal themselves!!
@Nuffsaid Thatsall: but I haven’t seen sheep farmers coming out to the protests, suggesting the level of discontent is lower. Of course they will endeavour to leverage any gains the beef farmers get to their own industry but whereas up to this point they may have seen the interests of both sets of farmers being in parallel the actions of the beef farmers have created a them and us attitude such that each industry could not fight their own corner at the increased probability of a cost to other farming groups
@Vocal Outrage: in all fairness, in the neck of the woods, Roscommon and the surrounding areas 90% of the farmers are mixed farmers. They farm both cattle and sheep. So you are talking about the same farmers when you mention about sheep
@Niall O’Sullivan: Most beef farmers would also be sheep farmers.
What are the Chinese inspecting exactly?? Sure nothing here could be as bad as it is there…Jesus the way they treat animals there …..I sincerely hope if anything is going to China its dead already.
@Anne: You are so right,we should be sending inspectors to china to see the conditions animals are subjected too and then tell them to clean up their act, they have no idea what animal suffering means or perhaps they don’t care, (more likely) but no live animal exports.
@Honeybee: exactly. Hell…the things I’ve seen on twitter. Things I can never unsee. They have no care for animals ….Christ.l, sure they hardly care for human life either. #BoycottChina
@Anne: if they are buying it in large amounts they have every right to go and inspect the plants; maybe they will learn something…
@Revolution or Cup of Tea?: #BoycottChina
@Anne: Wasn’t it exposed that Irish farmers are the worst in Europe for treatment if pigs?
@Dow Dubrov: never heard it, so I dont know, but during university my friend did visit one of the big meat processing plants…she said the piglets were forced down conveyor belts and they’d fall into revolving buckets and then the squeals…. She said it was absolutely horrible and shocking. She became a veggie then. As far as I understand in much of Europe the cattle anyway are housed inside their whole life…so I like to think the cattle have a better existence here
@Anne: I gave up eating pig after passing an abattoir. I was hundreds of metres away but I could hear screams of fear. so wrong.
@Lorraine Mac Rory: so horrible.
@Anne: spoken like a well travelled, and well informed person… but it appears not.
@Anne: Look out for farm range or diggers crispy shredded chicken that’s from china.
@SilexFlint: and all the chicken fillets and goujons etc in central are from Thailand!
When the beef baron was at the height of his power, they used rigid rules to close local slaughter houses with hygiene regulations only big boys could meet. Now they will not say declare to anyone commission etc. what they are paid for product and the farmer is seen as an extension of the factory. The beef industry now plans large scale feed lots and is back to lobbying to still get the Q mark.
The Cow is essentially no different than farm chickens.
If that happens rural Ireland will change ,the villages , the towns, empty lifeless monuments to a heritage we let be killed. I rarely support farmers but they have this spot on.
If they pay a the price there would be no pickets
Do they expect FARMERS to keep producing top quality products under cost price
Sure its really gonna do a lot of good for the environment exporting beef and lamb to China.not only in the production of meat is both co2 and methane gas intensive – but the transportation of it some 5000 miles plus east also has its environmental cost. We dont need this trade – the planet doesn’t need this . Let the Chinese produce their own food…
If this happened because of a protest by a bunch of vegans there would be uproar!
@thephantomshit: while a good point, it doesn’t really apply at all to the situation. The farmers have a direct financial and economical tie to the plant industry; vegans are taking a political stance.
@thephantomshit: The sign on the trailer in the picture says it all.
There is no good end game here. There is headless wildcat striking, no one reasonable for factory to talk to. Even if factory offered 3.60 , what’s to stop another wildcat group saying we need 4.00. The use of children, and prams to blockade trucks is reckless endangerment. Time for this blockade to stop, it’s only support us a few renegade, look a the queues of trucks from willing farms waiting to sell.
@Joe Clery: It was 4euro a kilo last year and the average beef animal left 50euro a head profit for keeping them for 2 years! In contrast the offal and waste in the factor is sold for about 100-150 euro per animal and it’s speculated that farmers aren’t paid for it.
Getting to be bit of joke now. Can’t see how this is getting resolved. Suppose the end user will end up getting shafted as usual
@Brian: It’s the poor cows I feel sorry for, they are the real losers here
@Brian: probably yea your average quarter pounder would go up by 25 cent, would give a beef farmer 2euro a kilo more on his beef, that’s over a 50 percent increase! Yea you’d be absolutely shafted paying that!
In two months’ time the UK will probably leave the EU. Sterling will inevitably take a dip against the Euro – how long the dip may last is impossible to predict. Irish exporting firms are already putting staff on short time, without any publicity. All of a sudden, it will make sense for Irish meat processors and supermarket chains to buy British beef, including Northern Irish beef. The the producers in the south will be screwed. They will live to rue the day they blew the chance of opening the Chinese market. They need to stop acting like a rabble of bowsies and speak responsibly through the respected representative organizations.
@John Considine: The big news my friend—–They are being screwed to the last already!
@John Considine: we’ve already got trade with China for beef but they are mainly exporting offal and cheap cuts that the farmer barely gets paid for! The lucrative Asian market isn’t so lucrative, explain how they can possibly pay the same for our product in China as we do in Europe?
@John Mc Donagh: well then, what are the protestors doing making nuisances of themselves – if it’s already over go home and let the PAYE factory workers in to their jobs.
A great bunch of lads. Should be allowed free pick of the meat. Whatever they like. And … More drink!
Why are they inspecting those factories, giving their own history?
https://www.reuters.com/article/china-food-safety-rat-meat/chinese-police-bust-million-dollar-rat-meat-ring-idINDEE94203520130503
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/03/china-arrests-fake-meat-scandal
Are they sure it wasn’t the Greeks??
You lot are fools! You realise the Chinese market is mostly cheap cuts and offal! It adds practically zero value to the farmers product but opens a market for by products that factories don’t pay the farmers for.
I bet they regret mercusor now!
The Chinese are more interested in controlling their supply chain to connect to the One Belt One Road project. They have been acquiring farms & meat processors in NZ & Australia for the past 5 years. Dont kid yourselves, China has 30 million + middle class that can afford premium meat in quantity.
https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/3376407/china-buys-into-nz-meat-processor/
It is a sad affair that these factories are allowed to just drop the life’s of hundredths of workers down on the chess board like a pawn in their media campaign to keep their heavy cut of the profits. How is their hiring practices not being focused upon, how can the way they treat their workers not be highlighted by the media
Hong cong dissidents
What i dont understand is what’s in the lorries the picketers are prevening from going into the factories. If it’s cows where are they coming from and are other farmers ok with the prices they are being paid
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