ABP action a ‘kick in the teeth’ for Irish farmers – Cullinan
IFA President Tim Cullinan said at a time when Irish beef farmers are facing collapsing prices, it’s incredible that the ABP food group, an Irish-owned company, would bring in beef from Poland to stock supermarket shelves in the UK.
“The European beef market is in turmoil. This has impacted more severely in Ireland as we are an export nation. We are being told by processors like ABP that the market for Irish beef has collapsed, yet we see the Irish-owned company filling orders with Polish beef. It is a ‘kick in the teeth’ for Irish beef farmers,” he said.
“The ABP Group should front up and give farmers a proper explanation as to why they chose to do this,” he said.
“The IFA has made a detailed submission this week to the Irish Government and the EU Commission looking for market stabilisation measures. We have had many meetings with our European counterparts in preparation for a key EU meeting on Monday,” he said.
“We made it clear last week that the whole sector needs to pull together to put a case forward to the Commission. I made the point that this crisis provided an opportunity for the processing sector to build trust by supporting farmers at this time. What has happened here will only serve to make matters worse,” he said.