The two main farm organisations last night appealed to the Government to reconsider the removal of a subsidy to the rendering industry which comes into force on March 1st and could cause a total closure of the meat trade from Monday.
The renderers, who process the offal from factories and turn it into meat and bonemeal, said yesterday they cannot continue to operate from Monday without a subsidy and have asked the meat plants to pay them for the service.
A spokesman for the renderers said there was now no demand for meat and bonemeal since it had been banned from pig and poultry feed by the EU.
The meat plants have already said they could not take on the cost and would pass it back to the farmers.
The Department of Agriculture said it would not continue the subsidy because it was in breach of EU rules and could be seen as a national subsidy.
Last night the president of the Irish Farmers' Association, Mr John Dillon, called on the meat factories and the renderers to suspend any increase in charges from next Monday to provide a further week to sort out the matter.
"If the Government does not respond positively next week, the Minister will have left producers with no options other than a total showdown with serious consequences for the livestock industry," he said.
He added he had called a crisis meeting of beef producers for next Tuesday night in the Abbeyleix Manor Hotel, in Co Laois, to discuss the crisis.
Mr Pat O'Rourke, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, predicted that the industry would close from Monday if the Government did not reconsider. "I would also call on the Government to put pressure on the EU to reverse its decision on the feeding of meat and bonemeal to pigs and poultry which flies in the face of science," he said.
Mr John Smith, chief executive of the Irish Meat Association, which represents many of the Irish meat export plants, said farmers selling livestock from next Monday would bear the brunt of the ending of the subsidy.
He said the subsidy for rendering and disposal of bones and soft offal was the equivalent to €13 a head on cattle and €2 per head on sheep.
There was also a separate subsidy on the rendering and destruction of blood, worth €0.40 in the case of cattle and €0.25 in the case of sheep.