Business
Bord Bia protest one month in: how far are farmers willing to go over Brazilian beef?
DCM Editorial Summary: This story has been independently rewritten and summarised for DCM readers to highlight key developments relevant to the region. Original reporting by Irish Times, click this post to read the original article.
Several farmers have maintained a sit-in protest inside the Bord Bia offices in Dublin 4 for a month now, in a protest over the chairman’s imports of Brazilian beef.
The dispute began after it emerged that Bord Bia chairman Larry Murrin’s company Dawn Farms has been importing Brazilian beef.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and others, including Sinn Féin, have called for Murrin to step down, saying this represents a conflict of interest given Bord Bia’s role in promoting the Irish food sector. However, the Government has backed Murrin, who defended himself at an Oireachtas agriculture committee meeting earlier this month.
Murrin rejected claims from members of the committee that the limited use of Brazilian beef at Dawn Farms represented a conflict of interest with his role at Bord Bia, or in any way compromised food safety in Ireland.
There was a rising cloud of smoke and a waft of beef and rashers outside the offices on Thursday afternoon, as other protesters sat outside on camping chairs, cooking food for themselves and the sit-in protesters in the building.
Speaking over the phone, through the glass doors of the office in Dublin 4, Tom Byrne, a farmer from Co Wicklow, explained to The Irish Times that he could not come outside to speak or he’d risk breaking the sit-in. The front door was also locked to prevent others entering.
Byrne, from Co Wicklow, has a been a farmer all his life.
“I’m fourth generation in the same place as a suckler and machinery farmer. We pride ourselves on what we produce, it feeds people all over the world. We have a great product and we want to protect it,” he said.
The farmers were concerned about the standards of Brazilian beef as compared to the standards set by Bord Bia for Irish farmers and felt there was a double standard, Byrne said.
“The public should be concerned about their own health. Brazilian beef contains growth hormones and antibiotics. If they’re imported anyway, let people make a choice but it should be clearly labelled as Brazilian,” Byrne said.
“Years ago in Ireland, farmers were put in jail for using growth hormones when they were illegal. That was the correct thing to do. So how can we entertain this? We are mystified,” he said.
Byrne has been part of the sit-in for 23 days now and had “not imagined” he would be in there for so long but said he would remain “until there was a resolution”.
“It’s not easy. We’re sleeping on the floor. We get meals in at 10am and 5pm fairly strictly. We’re not allowed to use the shower. We have a toilet and a wash-hand basin to keep as clean as we can,” he said.
However, they had a medical check-in and a visit from a nun, he said.
[ Beyond time for Bord Bia row to be resolved, Barry Cowen saysOpens in new window ]
Theresa Roche, a dairy farmer who was also occupying the building, said: “We pride ourselves on farm to fork and traceability. That’s what we’re recognised for.
“This has brought up a lot of other issues in relation to quality assurance and food labelling.
“The lack of transparency is fracturing the relationship between the farmer and Bord Bia. A lot of repair work needs to be done to fix the trust,” Roche told The Irish Times.
IFA president Francie Gorman said he had visited the protest most days since it began a month ago and felt “the issue needs to be addressed and can only be addressed with the removal of the chair”.
On Saturday, a further protest is planned outside Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon’s constituency office in Newbridge, Co Kildare, involving tractors, machinery and farmers on foot.
The Irish Times did not receive a response from Bord Bia when it was asked for comment.
