THE Director of Teagasc, Dr Liam Downey, has called for the introduction of a national food assurance scheme, offering an internationally recognisable quality mark for Irish beef.
In an end of year statement, Dr Downey said the scheme should operate at both farm and factory levels and could be supervised by the new Food Safety Board. At present, he said, a number of supermarket chains operate their own quality assurance schemes but they were not standardised.
"There will be only one opportunity to put in place a credible operational scheme. For success, it is essential that a phased approach is taken to the progressive introduction of the surveillance procedures. Also, because of the magnitude of the undertaking, the costs of the scheme, both capital and continuing, should be established in advance," he said.
A position paper on the scheme has been forwarded by Teagasc to the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates. It recommends a sufficiently resourced, independent body with the authority to investigate firms and factories.
Looking forward to 1997, Dr Downey also stressed the importance of ensuring that Irish agriculture was internationally competitive.
"The trend is now clearly towards the liberalisation of trading arrangements for food and agriculture products. For Ireland, this means working to improve our low cost production base in milk, meat and other products and developing an obsession with food safety and quality," he said.
Research conducted by Teagasc in 1996 showed that Ireland was highly competitive for food production and processing. In milk production, the State was 13 per scent more cost efficient than the EU average, and ranks ahead of Germany, Italy and Denmark.
He said farmers planned to invest £334 million, or 25 per cent of their farming income, next year. To keep costs down and maintain the competitive advantage, such investment should before productive purposes.
Dr Downey also stressed the importance of grassland management, milk protein improvement and cost control. The Teagasc programme for 1997 will include initiatives to highlight the use and management of grass in an effort to improve competitiveness.
"On beef firms, falling cattle prices throughout 1996 have increased the need for farmers to monitor production costs. It costs 103 pence to produce one kg of beef liveweight. The target on beef farms has to be to adopt the systems and technology to produce beef at 80 pence per kg"," he said.
In the pig sector, output was expected to rise by over 8 per cent in 1997 but prices would fall back to 1995 levels. Early next year, Teagasc will launch a blueprint for the development of the pig industry to 2000, identifying weaknesses which needed to be addressed.
