October 12, 2009

Irish-owned meat factories in the UK refused to kill Irish live cattle in favour of profits from their own exports of processed meat from Ireland, said the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS).

The ICOS said they were doing this to avoid having to pay farmers higher prices in the UK for live cattle than in Ireland and to effectively control what should be a free market between the two islands.

The ICOS said that Irish meat factories were exerting "strong control" over the live cattle trade on both sides of the Irish Sea.

The practice is discriminating against Irish farmers wishing to export live cattle to the UK. It allows the factories to give Irish farmers a poorer price for their cattle and then sell the resultant meat to the UK multiples at a higher profit margin, keeping the prices to Irish and UK farmers lower than might be achieved if there was a free and open live trade.

It was unclear if this market control was factory or multiple lead whether it represented collusion by both to maintain profit margins for their industries at the expense of the primary producer, ICOS Marts Committee Chairman Michael Spellman said.

The ICOS said it had also discovered that UK farmers were being actively discouraged from importing Irish cattle by the imposition of mandatory annual herd tests and pre-movement testing of all animals in a herd if even one single Irish animal was imported into a herd.

This policy was prejudicial against Irish livestock on English and Scottish farms, said Spellman.