The Association has also informed Asda, Sainsburys and Tesco, which are among the retailers which import beef from the ROI, of its request and made them aware it thinks Bord Bia’s claim cannot be substantiated.

Collective purchases from UK supermarkets account for around 35 per cent of ROI production and each company has demanded that its beef is covered by an independent, and verifiable, farm assurance scheme.

“Last week Bord Bia claimed it was a fact that less than ten per cent of Irish farms produce 50 per cent of Irish beef and that this remarkable assertion could be confirmed from official figures,” explained NBA chairman, Duff Burrell.

“The NBA has carefully studied the most recent information on Irish beef farm structures and calculated that production from 38 per cent of farms, or around 32,148 holdings, would cover 50 per cent of national output and that 20,000 farms would be needed to meet UK supermarket demands.”

“Bord Bia has at last confirmed that just 6,500 farms are BQAS assured, hopefully with full accredited EN45011 certificates, but these figures underline the extraordinary gap between Bord Bia claims and the mounting suspicions of the UK beef industry, UK farm assurance specialists, and some UK supermarkets.”

“If it is to make its assertions credible the Bord must, as a matter of urgency, provide the UK industry with fully authenticated information on the number of farms that are fully registered with BQAS, how many of these are up to date with their inspections, the proportion of beef production that is EN45001 accredited through BQAS and exactly what proportion of exports to the UK are BQAS assured.”

Source: farminguk.com