Red Meat Taskforce to Publish on Wednesday
UK - The long awaited Red Meat Taskforce Report will be published this Wednesday at the Balmoral Conference Centre. UFU representatives will be in attendance for this important event.
3 October 2007
2 minute read
Farmers may say that the Report is going to tell us what we already know. That may be true to an extent, but this now gives us a fully independent report which we will use to lobby both retailers and processors.
UFU President Kenneth Sharkey
UFU President Kenneth Sharkey says the Report will provide independent and credible evidence of the dire financial challenge facing local beef producers. Kenneth said; “Farmers may say that the Report is going to tell us what we already know. That may be true to an extent, but this now gives us a fully independent report which we will use to lobby both retailers and processors. I expect the Report to be a wake-up call to processors and retailers who have been taking farmers for granted for far too long”.
The UFU says radical thinking will be required to create a future for the local beef industry. Kenneth Sharkey said; “Local beef from our suckler herd should be a product easily promoted to the UK consumer, but as we have stated before, the beef supply chain is completely dysfunctional. The Taskforce Report will allow us to go to retailers with clear, concise facts at our finger-tips. We will need to look at all the options, but the days when retailers are happy to promote themselves as the champions of local produce, while being totally unconnected from the situation facing farmers are over”.
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