The Irish meat industry claimed yesterday that the economic report predicting €200 million losses annually as a result of a new world trade agreement had seriously underestimated the impact on the Irish beef sector.
Cormac Healy of Meat Industry Ireland, which represents most meat factories, said the Teagasc/Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute prediction models did not take into account that the real threat to the Irish beef sector would be the level of high-value steak cuts coming into the EU market.
"Furthermore, the report assumes no increase in preferential import quotas for beef if it receives sensitive product status, when clearly the EU will have to give increased preferential import access to the beef market," he said.
Mr Healy said the EU Commission's own analysis of its offer on market access suggests EU beef imports will rise from 500,000 tonnes today to 1.3 million tonnes.
"Meat Industry Ireland urges that no further concessions on import tariff cuts are made by the EU negotiators. Furthermore, it is essential that sensitive product status and an effective safeguard clause be secured for beef, particularly for high-value steak cuts."
IFA president Pádraig Walshe said a report that translates a 60 per cent cut in EU import tariffs for beef and dairy products and the elimination of export refunds into a farm income drop of only 11 per cent by 2015 clearly lacked credibility.
He said the report contained a number of serious flaws that undermined its conclusions.
He said the analysis attempted to separate the impact of Cap reform from the impact of World Trade Organisation talks, while both were intrinsically linked.
The beef tariff-cut predictions, he said, were also flawed because they failed to take into account the high-value cut content of beef imports into the EU and had assumed beef carcase imports.
"A more accurate analysis jointly conducted by IFA and Meat Industry Ireland clearly showed these beef imports would undermine EU prices by up to 50 per cent. This would leave Irish beef production unviable, resulting in a much larger volume reduction than concluded by Teagasc/Fapri," he said.
The Fine Gael deputy agriculture spokesman, Seymour Crawford, said the report suggested the worst fears of farmers could be realised.