THE loss of the Russian beef market would cause terrible damage to the industry here as it is currently Ireland's largest market taking more beef than this country sells to continental Europe.
Last year Irish meat plants sold nearly £300 million worth of beef to the Russians in a year when they sold £210 million worth of product to European countries, excluding Britain.
Since the latest round of the BSE crisis began in March 1996, the Russian market has underpinned the prices being paid to farmers for their animals and has kept the industry from collapse.
It has also meant that Ireland does not have to rely on EU intervention which was put in place to prevent the total collapse of beef prices.
This week Irish factories tendered for only 3,000 tonnes of EU intervention, a minuscule amount of what is available.
That is because they have been busy filling orders for the Russian and British markets. The latter continues to take more than £100 million worth of Irish product annually.
According to figures from Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, Irish beef export plants sent 10,000 tonnes of beef to Russia in January and between 7/8,000 tonnes will be exported this month.
The Russians have a requirement for 630,000 tonnes of beef imports this year as the Federation is only 40 per cent self-sufficient. Ireland hopes to get at least. 100,000 tonnes of that export market, similar to last year's figure.
The demand for Irish beef has been growing strongly since early 1990 when Russia began to purchase beef from EU intervention. By 1994, the Russians were buying £46 million worth of Irish beef.
This increased to £140 million in 1995 and grew to almost £300 million last year with the help of EU export refunds.
The continuity of export refunds - compensatory payments to exporters toy selling outside the EU at world prices - is essential for the trade to continue, and it would be very difficult to operate without these supports.
While there has been an extension of the ban by the Russians on beef from Cos Cork, Monaghan and Tipperary, to include Cavan, Donegal, Meath, Wexford, Limerick, 60 per cent of beef produced in the Republic is still eligible for the Russian trade.
Animals are identified by the tags in their ears and the system, introduced at meat plants last Monday, has worked smoothly, according to the Department of Agriculture.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, said this week that the ban had not caused any drop in prices to farmers.