Irish beef lacks conformation, is too fat and the animals are too old at slaughter, so it falls far short of what continental consumers consider top class, Irish beef farmers were told yesterday.
Mr John Horgan, deputy managing director of Kepak, one of Ireland's most successful beef exporters, told the Teagasc National Beef Conference in Tullamore that beef production must be tailored to meet market demands.
He said that for most continental markets our beef was too red, the fat colour was too yellow, there was too much weight variation and too much emphasis on traditional production systems.
"The reality is that in general we have little chance of getting the planned volumes onto EU markets because we do not have the correct mix of product to exploit the demand that exists in these major markets," he told more than 500 farmers.
"To date, I would contend, we have concentrated too much on disposing of what we produce instead of tailoring production to suit markets where real volume outlets exist and where there is already an established trade for imported beef." Mr Horgan said Ireland had been a successful exporter to the UK because we had supplied a product the market wanted, which happens to be almost identical to what we eat, at a competitive price. The same product is being offered to the continental markets but there it was more suited for the food service sector and niche retail markets.
Teagasc's chief beef adviser, Mr Bernard Smith, said that under the Agenda 2000 CAP reforms, a well run 100-acre suckling farm will be capable of generating an income at or above the average industrial wage by the year 2002, an increase of around £5,000 on current incomes. Mr Aidan Cotter, operations director of An Bord Bia, said the future for Irish beef was with stable, higher price markets in Europe and Ireland had the opportunity to build markets there, but it needed to increase beef sales to the EU from 41 per cent in 1997 to 56 per cent in 2002.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, said 60,000 of our top quality calves and weanings had been shipped to the Continent this year - this haemorrhage of some of our best young stock would deprive the industry of a valuable source of raw material. He said this trade would continue to accelerate unless a properly structured quality-based payment system was put in place.