Bord Bia on the Run as TAC Meetings Postponed

The decision by Bord Bia this evening to postpone meetings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday next to discuss new standards for farmers shows the organisation cannot carry out its business without the support of farmers. 

IFA President Francie Gorman said IFA had organised a protest for Monday and Tuesday outside these meetings where the IFA had planned to announce we were withdrawing from the TAC process until the Chair resigned or is removed from office.

“It is clear that Bord Bia cannot do its business with farmers. The current Chair of Bord Bia, who imports Brazilian beef, has put himself ahead of the Association and it’s doing untold damage,” he said. 

“The Minister for Agriculture has to ask himself about his role in this debacle. Declaring full confidence in the Chair while farmer confidence in Bord Bia is ebbing away was a ham-fisted intervention that failed to take into account the level of farmer anger about this issue.”

“For the Minister to give credit to the Bord Bia Chair for Ireland’s export performance while dismissing farmer anger as ‘emotion’ is outrageous because it ignores the fact that farmers made it happen. It shows how out of touch he is,” he said.

The meetings were to discuss revised Quality Assurance (QA) standards that farmers will have to meet, yet the Chair is importing Brazilian beef. 

“We are told that the customers of our beef need us the apply higher standards at farm level, yet the Chairman has told us that these same customers are now insisting that they require some Brazilian beef as part of their contract,” he said.