The President of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), Joe Healy has called for a major national diplomatic initiative to be led by the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed to maximise every single market opportunity on live exports in 2017. 
 
Against a background of increased cattle supplies of 100,000 head forecast for 2017 and a continuing increase in calf supplies, Joe Healy said Ireland needs to get the capacity of the live trade back up to 300,000 to 400,000 head to drive competition and get a balance back into the beef trade capable of delivering viable prices from the market.
 
Joe Healy said IFA has been working hard on calf exports for the spring and has met a number of the exporters and the Department of Agriculture in recent weeks.

He said a strong live export trade for calves is essential, adding that the current difficulties in exporting to Holland are very unsatisfactory and need to be resolved immediately with the EU Commission. Irish farmers must have access to the EU single market he said.
 
The IFA President said, "It is clear that there are real opportunities for Ireland in the live export markets such as Turkey, North Africa and continental Europe and all of these must be actively pursued in 2017."

Source: www.businessworld.ie