ICSA president Dermot Kelleher has said while the appointment of a CEO for the AgriFood Regulator is welcome ICSA remains concerned that the powers to compel retailers and processors to supply data around pricing are too weak in their current format.

Speaking following a meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Ministers Charlie McConalogue, Pippa Hackett, and Martin Heydon in Government Buildings yesterday (24 May) Mr Kelleher said, "If the ambition is to drive fair play for farmers in the food chain, then the legislation must be robust enough to deliver that. We think the draft regulation is too weak."

Mr Kelleher said he was also appalled that government and the retail sector seem to think that the inflation crisis will be solved by driving down the price of basic primary products like meat, bread, milk when the reality is that price gouging can be found in thousands of supermarket items. "For too long, cheap food and undercutting has enabled supermarkets to make big profits off other items. Cutting 10c off a litre of milk won't be much good to a family when toothpaste is being sold at up to €100/Litre. Toothpaste manufacturers don't have to deal with huge escalation in feed, fertiliser, and fuel costs. Beef and lamb cannot be sold at below the cost of production."

Regarding the sheep sector Mr Kelleher reiterated the need for an increased support package for sheep farmers. "The €12/ewe in the CAP is not fit for purpose - sheep prices earlier this year and last autumn were worse than previous years despite costs going through the roof. We suggested that the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR) could be used. We cannot understand how the BAR can be used for genomic sampling, mainly for dairy farmers, but it can't be used for the sheep sector - that makes no sense to a sheep farmer."

On supports for the suckler sector Mr Kelleher said, "We want to see Budget 2024 deliver a suckler scheme that would be open to all, with no quota restrictions, no limits on the number of cows and no five-year contracts. We have 20,000 suckler farmers in the SCEP which is little more than a third of suckler farmers."

Noting the vote of AGRI Committee in the European Parliament yesterday to reject the proposal for an EU Nature Restoration Regulation Mr Kelleher said, "This must be a signal to go back to the drawing board. The key issues are that there must be a new EU budget to pay for this ambition and it is shocking that nothing has been done to deal with this. We would suggest that the Irish Government stands against the Nature Restoration Regulation until:

 EU puts a new budget in place to help farmers improve nature.

1. That there is a definition of re-wetting that is sensible and does not involve flooding or destroying land.
2. That we work to improve biodiversity with properly funded schemes.
3. That there is cast iron guarantee that no farmer is forced to do anything and that we have a plan to ensure that re-wetting of state lands or Bord na Mona does not impact neighbouring farmers.

On the Industrial Emissions Directive Mr Kelleher said, "We are very concerned about this. We disagree in principle that family farms should be classified as industrial. In terms of the debate at EU level, we think that 350 LU is still too low, we would like Ireland to push for 500 LU; and more importantly the exemption for less intensive must be all farms below 3LU/Ha. Some of the groups in the EU parliament want this as low as 2LU/Ha which would be really bad for Ireland."

On the Climate Action Plan, Mr Kelleher said, "We are surprised that there has been no engagement since the Food Vision Beef and Dairy groups reached no agreement on how to move forward. The key point is that climate action costs money and government is going to have to confront this reality. Farmers are willing to do their best to improve sustainability, but they are not willing to be put out of business and this must be the starting point. Food security, energy security, the rural economy, and climate policy must all be dealt with in a balanced way that leads to win/win solutions.