Dawn Farm Foods has come under the spotlight since it was revealed that it sources a small percentage of beef – about 1 per cent, according to the company – from Brazil. It comes at a hugely sensitive time when beef farmers here have been fighting against the Mercosur trade agreement.
Despite expressions of support from Bord Bia for its chair, as well as support from Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, a number of farm organisations are united in calling for him to step away from the Irish-food-promotion body.
Indefensible
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) has said that ‘it is now indefensible for Larry Murrin to remain as chair of Bord Bia’. ICSA members gathered outside Bord Bia’s offices in Dublin today (Friday, January 23) to protest his continued position as chair. ICSA president, Sean McNamara said: “Let’s be clear. The issue was raised, it was discussed, and nothing was done. Larry Murrin remains chair of Bord Bia, despite overseeing a business that sources Brazilian beef. That is not acceptable to Irish farmers and it should not be acceptable to the minister.
“Bord Bia exists to promote Irish food and back Irish farmers; yet its chair is linked to Brazilian beef at a time when Mercosur threatens the market with unfair imports. That is a clear conflict of interest, and farmers are rightly angry.”
He added that the responsibility for resolving this issue now lies squarely with the Minister Heydon. “If Bord Bia will not act, then Minister Heydon must. He needs to replace Mr Murrin with a chair who puts Irish farmers first, not one whose business interests work against them. Irish farmers deserve better than this.”
The ICSA joins the Irish Farmers’ Association and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association in calling for Mr Murrin’s resignation. Earlier this week, in advance of a Bord Bia board meeting to address the matter, IFA president, Francie Gorman, said: “I am conscious that I have responsibilities as a board member [of Bord Bia] and the correct forum to address this issue with the chair and the other directors is at a board meeting. However, I am also conscious of my responsibilities as an elected representative of farmers who are the bedrock of what Bord Bia does. Farmers participate in the Bord Bia Quality Assurance Scheme and they have to meet exhaustive and stringent requirements. Without farmer confidence, Bord Bia cannot do its job,” he said. Spekaing after that board meeting, he confirmed: “I made a formal proposal to the board that the Chair be removed in the best interests of Bord Bia.”
ICMSA president, Denis Drennan said it was ‘simply impossible to convince farmers that the degree of traceability and standards that Bord Bia insisted upon in their day-to-day audits of Irish farmers could be squared with the import of Brazilian beef’.
“If a reasonable and plausible explanation had, at any stage, been publicly released by Bord Bia in the run-up to today’s board meeting, then farmer anger might have been defused and a different conclusion might have been possible. But no such explanation was offered, and farmers had been left to make up their minds.”