The Bord Bia debacle rumbles on

The dispute began when Dawn Farm Foods, of which Larry Murrin is CEO, confirmed that Brazilian beef was imported as part of its beef supply in 2025. The “buck” stops with the Board and the Chair, yet Bord Bia took out full page adverts and I quote:

The Chair is not the “head of Bord Bia”. Bord Bia is led by a CEO and a senior leadership team. The chair and board members are not involved in day-to-day operations. The Chair is responsible for leadership of the board and ensuring its effectiveness.

This doesn’t sit right with myself or many other farmers. A lot of farmers are also directors of both voluntary and business boards, and are required to have training after the 2014 Companies Act. That training often changed the traditional way we all ran all organisations, explaining that directors are in fact fully responsible legally for the actions of the organisation. At the start of all meetings all directors have to declare any conflict of interest. Why have they a Board at all, if the CEO is not answerable to them. No board is involved in the day to day running of any company/organisation, but they have the overview and all responsibilities. Who exactly is the line manager of the CEO? And who, if anyone, does he report to?

I find it hard to believe that the chair of Bord Bia doesn’t see a conflict of interest when his own company has imported Brazilian beef (the firm said it made up less than one per cent of its overall supply last year).

Brazilian beef is not quality assured in the same rigorous way we Irish farmers must adhere to under Bord Bia terms. Farmers maintain the high standards demanded by consumers and customers in Ireland and many export markets.

We all have the Bord Bia inspections and need great accuracy with the volume of data required for these inspections. Antibiotics are a big element, but only last year new veterinary laws require prescriptions for wormers. Part of Bord Bia inspections, along with Department inspections, require farmers to have up to date records of the drug cabinet on the farm; what has been bought, along with the batch and expiry dates. Then record what animals are administered either in batch data entry or individual animals, this is especially true for dry cow therapy and milk is not taken until five days after calving even if well out of retention. This makes for a busy time.

On the environment, we need to get our Bord Bia certificate and our Origin Green carbon footprint from our farm enterprise. On our farm they looked at the slurry management, nitrogen usage, grazing season, energy efficiency and EBIs. It is more than a shock to hear that the chair of Bord Bia own meat company does not have to undergo rigorous requirements and is no longer a member of Origin Green, unlike Liffey Meats and Silverhill Ducks who are both Gold members of Origin Green.

Calves are DNA and BVD tested by taking samples when tagging the calves. The calves do not appear on ICBF herd profile until the DNA results are known and this can take 10 days. This level of traceability is in stark contrast to the revelations of the use of imported beef, specifically from Brazil. The FSAI admitted that Brazilian beef contaminated with hormones was consumed here in Ireland before it could be traced. This meat came in through Rotterdam, then Northern Ireland and down here to be consumed. This is very worrying for consumers and the whole traceability issue in both shops and restaurants, we need to read labelling and ask questions and not just accept the name of an Irish supplier.

Wettest Spring ever

What a spring we are having weather wise. Other years we would have the freshly calved cows turned out to dry paddocks by day, for a few hours but the weather doesn’t allow us this year. The old people used to have a saying “it would put years on you” and this year is one that we will not forget for a long time. The AMOC must be getting affected by climate change in the Gulf Stream. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a vital system of ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream, that transports warm surface water north and cold, deep water south, crucial for regulating Europe’s climate. Driven by temperature and salinity, it is currently weakening due to melting ice, with risks of collapse that could cause severe climate disruption. (wikipedia.org).

For the last two weeks the calving season has started in earnest and is in full swing. Calf registration is done on the Smartphone with AgriNet HerdAPP. The mobile is constantly synced to keep up-to-date for everyone.

We used sexed semen to breed our replacements this year and are lucky so far with a high number of heifer calves though our highest EBI cow had a bull calf. These will grow to be future cows and will stay on the farm for a long time.

In March we will have a student from Ballyhaise College to help relieve some of the spring workload and to learn the ropes on a busy dairy farm. Other jobs put on the long finger this winter include the VAT refund and measuring grass. It must be my age, but I procrastinate about everything. Paperwork is constant and one gets weary of constantly researching and filling in passwords and logins for everything. We got some slurry out last week but we went very light with the contractor using trailing shoe to reduce any losses of precious nitrogen and to save the ground.

Fitness for Farmers and friends

In addition to all the events happening in the Virginia Show Centre, we started “Fitness for Farmers” with members of our farming community and this has been a great success. We are now starting a third session and it is opened to everybody to join. Full details on the facebook page and there a cup of tea and a chat after the training. It is good to take an hour out and meet fellow farmers. We hope to upgrade our café area with a new coffee machine, new menus and down the road the possibility of food tourism. This was one of the first reasons to build the Centre, but time and volunteering got in the way of progressing this ambition.