Beef Protests
by Nicola Treacy
We have seen a lot of commotion about beef farmers lately about the drop of beef prices to around €3.00 per kilo. The protests started in mid-summer of 2019 and continued up until last week and ongoing. With the farmers blocking Merion square, Kildare street, Dublin port and the M50 and all around the country during the summer( Slaney meats near Buncloudy, Kepak Hackettstown and Ballyjamesduff just to name a few) .
There have been many farm organisations protesting such as Beef Plan, Independent Farmers of Ireland and ICSA (Irish cattle and sheep farmers association). The results of the protests has been a beef taskforce which we have not seen a whole lot of results from. The reason why farmers have had to end up protesting because factories have been ‘beating us with brexit’. At the moment there doesn’t seem to be much of a profit in beef farming, but as long as the factories get what they want it’s okay.