THE BSE crisis has utterly changed the outlook for agriculture in Ireland and across the EU, the Fianna Fail leader told farmers last night.
In an address to the Irish Farmers' Association's annual meeting, Mr Ahern said the unprecedented collapse of confidence in food products had focused new attention on the consumer. Fianna Fail was determined to harness this new focus as a positive force for change.
Criticising the Government's response of putting the Food Safety Advisory Board on a statutory basis, Mr Ahern said the proposal was fatally flawed because it presupposed that the existing multiple agencies and Departments were operating, and were capable of operating, without a major restructuring.
Fianna Fail proposed a single Food Quality Authority which would have the power to set new standards for all Irish food production. This would be the most fundamental change in agriculture policy since the establishment of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1900.
He complimented the IFA on the leadership it had shown in tackling the tiny minority of rogue farmers who abused the food chain for personal profit.
Signalling that Fianna Fail would consider the content of its election manifesto today and tomorrow, Mr Ahern concluded that farming families had suffered from the ideological begrudgery of the present Government for long enough.
"It is time that farmers were no longer treated as second rate social partners," he said.
