Big retailers need to show more respect for producers, says the man at the helm of food safety, writes PAUL CULLEN
SUPERMARKETS HAVE been given a blunt warning by the Junior Minister with responsibility for food promotion and safety: “Stop screwing the farmers who supply your food.”
Minister of State for Food and Agriculture Shane McEntee says big retailers need to show more respect for producers if the Irish horticulture sector is to survive.
The new man at the department with responsibility for food, horticulture and food safety is a firm believer in shopping local. “I don’t like to see Irish food being used as a loss leader – fruit and veg in particular. It could be a dying trade if we don’t take action.
“I’m trying to point it out to the supermarket chains. I know you have to get people into your shops but it will end up that we won’t have any horticulture in this country if you don’t respect the people who grow the food you sell.”
He says the hardest thing he has come across as a Minister was when farmers told him they were afraid to talk because if their names were used, their business would suffer. “You cannot continue to screw the producer to get people into shops,” he warns the big retailers.
The solution is for farmers to unite in producer organisations and co-operate when dealing with the big retailers. He cites the example of the mushroom industry, where big and small producers have joined forces to market their product collectively. As a result, Irish producers now supply two-thirds of the UK mushroom market.
McEntee says he is encouraging strawberry producers to take the same approach. But other sectors, such as potato growers, are more resistant. One result is that we import 45,000 tonnes of potatoes a year for use in chip shops, he points out. “You can’t blame the supermarkets for doing what they are doing, but if the farmers were organised as a unit, like dairy farmers are, they’d get better prices.”
McEntee says he is not happy about the level of information given to consumers about the origin of much of the food they are eating.
“I think we have to move to let people know if a thing is 100 per cent Irish – grown from start to finish in this country.
“People have ways of dressing up a thing, but I wouldn’t be happy. Whether it’s chicken or rasher or whatever, you want to know that it is produced in Ireland.”
As for the proposal to introduce a code of practice to regulate conduct in the retail sector, he says he is in favour “to a point”.
“I turn off the television when I see Irish products being advertised at half-price. I think it’s scandalous.”
However, some producers care too much about grants and need to spend more on sales and marketing, he suggests. “A farmer can be a busy fool but he has to take control of it himself.”
The Minister says he is worried about the future of the horticulture industry, given the high level of imports. Each year we spend €1 billion on importing fruit and veg, including €100 million of apples. There are isolated successes – Ireland used to import all peppers but Keelings now grows a quarter of our needs – but overall the sector is struggling.
He admits food prices in Ireland are high and warns they will rise further if production is not geared up as envisaged under the department’s Food Harvest 2020 programme.
Agriculture is a rare success story in the Irish economy these days, and it is not surprising the Minister wants to spread the good news. “The more promotion the media can do on the good news about agriculture, the better. Suppliers are being paid, farmers are coming back into the tax net and exports are soaring.”
Overall exports are up 4 per cent, but agricultural exports have increased 15 per cent and dairy exports by 42 per cent, he points out.
McEntee’s background is pure agricultural. Raised in Nobber in the heart of Co Meath’s farming belt, he left school at 15 to work on the family farm. Soon after he went out on his own by renting land from his father. He was a mixed farmer for many years but then dairy became his mainstay, until the downturn hit farm incomes and he diversified.
Like many others in the sector, he became a part-time farmer and took to the road as an agricultural sales representative, returning home in the evenings to do the milking.
In 2002, he sold his milk quota and bought a pub in Nobber. A restaurant followed as he moved “from farm to fork”. “It was pure Angus beef and a great lesson in food safety.”
He entered the Dáil after a byelection in Meath in 2005 and sold the pub/ restaurant business shortly after. His elevation to junior minister status last March was seen as a reward for years of loyalty to Enda Kenny.
The food industry here has been rocked by intermittent crises over recent decades, including BSE, the foot-and-mouth outbreak and the dioxin contamination of pigmeat in 2008.
The outbreak of lethal food poisoning last year in Germany, which after several false trails was traced back to infected bean sprouts, shows that massive crises can erupt in the most unexpected places and involving the most unlikely foods.
However, McEntee says he is confident Ireland has the system in place to react quickly to a fresh food crisis, if one were to erupt. While the legwork in such an event would be done by the Food Safety Authority, his department would obviously have a key oversight role. “The reason I’m confident we can deal with anything that might happen is that the FSAI puts the customer first, it has no vested interests and it is totally independent.”
Some felt Ireland over-reacted to the dioxin scandal by destroying thousands of healthy pigs but McEntee believes we did not have a choice. “It looks terrible to be sending good hams for rendering but we are a food-exporting country and we have to show the right attitude.”
As evidence of Ireland’s high standards on food safety, he adduces the interest shown by developing countries such as China, Russia and India in our regulatory set-up. “The fact that over 300 Chinese students will be studying food safety at UCD next year amounts to recognition of our high standards,” McEntee adds. “Visitors are very impressed with the quality of our food and the traceability that is in operation.”