Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 December 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Recent Reclassification of Beef Indexes: Discussion

Mr. Sean Coughlan:

The reality is that these evaluations are an ongoing process. If something else happens and the economics change again - perhaps feed prices increase by another 20% in the long term or they may decrease - and Dr. Crosson says the economics need to be tweaked, we will do that. The stakeholder forum is a reincarnation of something called industry meetings, which we used to have in the past. In recent years, industry meetings were just herd book meetings. The stakeholder forum is broadening that out, meeting on the herd books and having the commercial farmers, the marts and the various farm organisations there. We will have those industry meetings. It is not just about this issue but about what is going to happen next. It is one part of the lessons we are learning.