Irish beef exporters remained concerned about Brexit

Irish beef producers have not been reassured by Theresa May's pledge that cross-border trade would continue uninterrupted after Brexit. The promise of regulatory alignment was essentially a fudge that got round an awkward issue and allowed talks to proceed to the next stage. It was kept vague for political reasons.

Ireland's beef exports to the UK are worth €4.4bn a year. The largest groups have operations in the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and mainland Britain.

Beef exporters remain concerned that the UK might yet seek to enforce different food safety and animal health rules to the EU. They fear delays when exporting to the UK; disruption to meat shipments to continental Europe via Britain; and the prospect of having to compete with cheaper imports from the likes of Brazil.

There is a concern that without full regulatory alignment, the UK could take imports from the US, Brazil and Australia - countries with different food safety and animal welfare standards to the UK.

Special post-Brexit deal needed for Ireland

A special post-Brexit deal is needed for Ireland, according to an influential House of Lords committee: Brexit and Ireland

The report gives recognition to the importance of the agro-food sector in Ireland and Anglo-Irish trade in this area. Farmers will suffer if trade barriers are imposed between the two countries. The agro-food sector would probably be worst affected, given its reliance on cross-border trade.

'Could do better' is end of term report

As 2012 draws to a close and the Cypriot EU Presidency concludes, agriculture ministers and MEPs across the 27 member states took time this week to reflect on how CAP reform negotiations have gone over the past six months.

Agra Europe reports that there was a general feeling of satisfaction that significant progress has been made but also the admission that much work still needs to be done in the coming six months under the Irish Presidency.

On Tuesday, ComAgri announced that from the near 8 000 amendments to the European Commission’s CAP reform proposals sought by member states, the total has now been whittled down to just 100 compromise agreements, which will be voted on in January. A final vote will only take place once the EU’s next long-term budget has been agreed (likely to be early February, 2013).

The outgoing Cypriot Presidency released its progress report on its six months in charge of CAP reform, praising the 'positive spirit' of the negotiations over the period, but observers would still probably come away with a nagging feeling of ‘must try harder’.

As Irish farm minister Simon Coveney reiterated, 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,' admitting it would be a 'big ask' to get a CAP deal by June, which is widely seen as the deadline if parts of the new policy will be ready for 2014.

Many ministers were openly frustrated at the lack of progress on the EU’s 2014-2020 budget, which is undoubtedly the major hurdle for the reform of the CAP. Of course, the amount spend on the CAP is a hurdle in the way of a budget agreement in the eyes of some member states, not least the UK. Beyond that there are still obviously problems to be ironed out with the ‘greening’ element of the proposals as well as questions about the plan for the internal convergence of direct payments. What that means is that some get more, but perhaps not as much as they hoped for, and others get less. That's never an easy balance to draw.

CAP bonanza for big Irish dairy companies

Figures obtained through a freedom of information request to the Irish Department of Agriculture show that the country's top dairy companies did well in securing CAP money in the form of export refunds and intervention aid.

It was actually Greencore, which owns Irish Sugar, that topped the recipient's list with restructuring funds that amounted to a cool €84m.

However, the Irish Dairy Board received €6.5m, followed by Kerry Ingredients with €5.1m. In third place was the company behind Baileys cream liqueur, R & A Bailey, owned by the drinks giant Diageo, which received €2.9m. It is believed that most of the payments were for export refunds, but that the IDB received money for limited butter intervention in 2008.

Given that dairy markets were relatively strong in 2008, these payments are well down on the levels of 2007 and earlier years. Given the widespread current use of export refunds, the 2009 figures are likely to be significantly higher.

In all cases the companies have defended the payments, claiming that they were a mechanism used to support the milk price to farmers. However, it is unlikely that all the money reached farmers.