‘It’s the unfairness in the standards’

Interview with Brendan Soden on the effects of Mercosur

On his poultry farm in Stradone, Brendan Soden produces free-range eggs and grows replacement birds for the layer industry. Previously, he served as vice chair for the Poultry Committee of the IFA.

He will formally take up the position of Chair at this week’s IFA annual general meeting. Reporter Nicole McDermott spoke to him about his role in turbulent times.

Anglo-Celt: It’s an interesting time for you to start off as Poultry Chair. Not only is the avian flu still an issue, but also the Mercosur deal was decided. What do you think about that?

Brendan Soden: “It’s not good. It’s disappointing that it’s come to this stage that the EU is going to allow beef into the country that, for the last number of weeks, has shown hormones and antibiotics, and had to be recalled. The chicken, I suppose, has taken more of a back seat in the discussion, but there’s a vast quantity of chicken to come into Europe in the next number of years. So we’re talking about the equivalent to nine million chickens per year hitting the European market. That’s going to cause displacement throughout Europe, no matter how we look at it, and it’ll put chicken farmers under pressure.”

Celt: We’ve heard a lot about beef in recent weeks, not so much about the poultry sector, but 25% of poultry farmers could be affected by Mercosur - far more than in the beef industry.

Brendan: “Yes, that’s what it’s looking like at the minute. Chicken is one of the most used proteins out there. So this coming in is not good. We’ve seen what’s been used in the cattle through the Farmers’ Journal and IFA’s visit to Brazil. If that’s been used in the beef, what’s been used in the chicken?”

AC: One could argue that the consumer can make the decision of buying the better quality food. What would you say about that?

Brendan: “Of course, price comes into every consumer’s mind. That is the main thing. But at the minute, we can see that the Irish consumer continues to look for ‘Bord Bía Approved’, so at least they’re sure of where it came from. The biggest problem we have is a lot of chicken will go into the processed food.”

AC: So consumers cannot distinguish what they’re getting?

Brendan: “With your chicken goujons, your pizzas, things like that, people won’t know where the country of origin is. It’s not marked. And for years, IFA have called that origin should be marked clearly in all products coming in and sold to consumers. Because at the end of the day, everybody needs to know what they’re eating.”

AC: In what way are regulations a burden?

Brendan: “The unfairness in the standards is one of the biggest things that’s annoying us. We’ve been asked to follow more and more regulations and then they say: Let’s bring this is. One regulation we are facing at the minute on the poultry side is the EU deforestation regulation, which will come into effect at the end of the year.”

AC: What does the regulation say?

Brendan: “Most livestock farmers now use soya in some form on their diets. Now, we’re not allowed to buy soya from a country that openly does deforestation, which most South American countries do. So, we are not allowed to buy soya from Brazil, yet we can buy the chicken from Brazil now that has eaten the soya.”

AC: Squaring the circle it seems...

Brendan: “It has just gone complete madness.”

AC: You want your voice heard on the these matters. Is that why you became involved with the IFA committee?

Brendan: “Up until a few years ago, we had no representation on the egg side of things.

“We realised, there were too many within the industry making decisions for farmers that had nothing to do with farmers, so we got together and we approached IFA. They agreed to represent us and since then we have a great team behind us for all poultry.”

AC: What’s your first steps as poultry chair?

Brendan: “We’ve a number of issues there at the minute. You mentioned Avian flu there. One of them is that we get funding into place for a comprehensive compensation scheme, should somebody go down with that. That’s something I want to work heavily on now in the next couple of months. This year, we’ve been very lucky and there hasn’t been a lot of cases, but that worry is always there. So we need something in place that will ensure that if something does happen, the farmers look after.”