Protest

I see the anonymous enviro accounts are targeting Pat O Toole on twitter.

Pat joined an Taisce. Cuff is very close to their hearts. The enviro machetes are being pulled out now.

The best of luck to those farmers.

It's a savage game. Farmers finally have hit on a very tender spot.

There's a lot of farmer opinion against the protest, Any farm organisation would be foolish to plough in behind them.

This could do a lot of harm like the beef protest did, so be as well to wait to see what they achieve before criticising IFA.

Doesn't seem to be alot against the protest around here anyways. Don't forget its not just the farmers. Its the haulage industry, SMEs, the Dublin taxis and limo drivers are supporting it too.

Yeah I can imagine the support you'd get by making an ordinary Joe queue for 2 hours to get home from work.

A huge amount of stuff goes out of musgraves every day, I wonder is there many more musgraves depots to take up the slack, if this is blocked for long the shelves won't be long emptying,

The plan is to hit another distribution centre today if they have the support, but I'd say they haven't the support

It's just a straw to grab on to, A reason for action, this wasn't an issue when this protest was being planned.

I heard plenty of complaints at the time, the new graders were being put in anyway, and unless you know what the base price should be the bonus isn't worth a damn

Very sound Columnist.

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/beef/beef-protests-are-now-beginning-to-backfire-very-badly-on-farmers-38592921.html

They should get every mart and meat factory to slip in a little levy for them, opt out of course.. ten million per annum would be a mighty achievement..

This farmer is of a vintage that has his money made, has no dependents or borrowing, is pocketing his sfp and the money he was losing on his cattle bothered him less than the inconvenience of holding fit cattle.

All his commentary about grading, the unfair price structure penalising his quality beef, is hard to take seriously after he criticised people who went out on a limb to do something about it.

a fine commentator but this wasn’t his finest hour.

so what group are actually protesting outside musgraves?

So you’re quoting an article written 2 weeks after the protest ended? Did you ask that same man at any stage in the past few months what his opinion on it was? Did you ask how his end of year accounts are looking since?

Like any protest you take short term pain for long term gain. And now 2 years later the gain has far outweighed the short term pain.

I would also completely discredit that article on the basis he said there were no beef farmers at the protests. I’m a beef farmer and I was there, the majority of people from my neighbourhood that were at the protest were, and still are, beef farmers. On that point alone his article has to be discredited as quite frankly what he was saying was untrue.

I kept sheep many years ago. I would still have a reasonable knowledge on them but not enough to start telling current sheep farmers what they should or shouldn’t be doing and what is a good or bad move for their business. I’d assume it’s the same for you with beef so it’s probably best to leave the advice on beef farming to people that are actually involved in, and knowledgeable about, beef.

People are entitled to their opinion, IFA have delivered 100s of million to farmers over the last few years yet there's farmers taht say that it was for the factories but as far as I know the farmer got the cheque and if they were idiot enough to give it to the factory it wasn't anyones fault but their own.

It's fairly obvious it was a rising market any way and unlike the sheep facories the beef processors are not returning the increase to the farmers, That's why I say that the base price is not where it should be, After all lambs are at least 60% more than the beef price. so any bonus is well absorbed by keeping down the base price

Yes people are entitled to their opinion, but when their opinion is being printed in a national newspaper and it’s very easily proven as being untrue then that opinion should rightly be ignored.

It certainly wasn’t a rising market when the protests started with procurement managers openly talking about getting the price down to €3 per kg. So I suppose the fact that it’s rising since then should be credited to the protest?

Like I said, you’re better off sticking to the sheep.

You can post whatever you like and I, and everyone else, can do the same (once it’s within the Boards charter obviously!!). But don’t expect people to take on board your views when they can so easily be proven as untrue and biased towards some sort of an irrational hatred of people that achieved something you failed to do in the numerous protests you were involved in. And for the record I stood at some of them beef protests over the years also. I didn’t know who you were at the time as I wasn’t on boards but I’d say we were stood not too far apart, and in unity, at them.

If I start to give advice on sheep or dairy it wouldn’t be long before I’d be shown up to be far less knowledgeable on them topics than a lot of other people here. The same goes for you with beef, it’s just best left to the people that understand it.