Northern Ireland Red Meat Industry Task Force

Dairy Beef Protocol

The NI Red Meat Industry Task Force held its 23rd September 2009 meeting at Greenmount Campus CAFRE to coincide with the ‘Task Force In Action’ event, staged later that day to brief industry stakeholders, farmers and other interested parties on the activities of the Task Force since the launch of it’s report in October 2007. The Task Force meeting discussed progress on a number of ongoing work initiatives and identified several priority matters for further examination. The main points of note from the meeting were:

The study tour to New Zealand (NZ) was undertaken to study best practice
red meat production in a part of the world which has been living without
subsidies for 25 years.
The 12 farm visits and 10 presentations (6 after-dinner speakers, 2 on-farm
speakers, 1 morning briefing, 1 lunchtime speaker) were organised by Peter
McArdle (INI) and representatives from Abacus Bio (a NZ-based private
sector company which specialises in technology transfer to the agri-food
industry). (Details of farms and speakers are shown in the Appendix).
These organisers are to be highly commended for the smooth running of this
mission. However, due to circumstances outside their control it was
unfortunate that visits to the farmer-owned processor co-operative (Alliance)
and to Lincoln University’s Dairy Farm had to be substituted by alternative,
but nonetheless very valuable, farm visits.
All farm visits and speakers were seen to be of relevance to the following 5
underpinning study tour themes/aims:-
1. Livestock supply chains within dairy-origin beef, upland/lowland
sheep, suckler cow and hill sheep farming systems
2. Grassland management practices with particular reference to the
establishment and management of clover-based systems
3. The regulatory burden in NZ when compared with NI
4. Living without subsidies (since 1984)
5. Knowledge & Technology Transfer.
This report is presented in five sections:
Introduction (this page)
Findings under each of the above 5 themes/aims (page 2).
Initiative Priorities on NZ technology for adoption in NI are identified (p. 9).
Recommendations and Actions A list is provided (page 11).
Appendix detailing farms and speakers (page 12).
The report was compiled by the Primary Production Group comprised of:
UFU – Harry Sinclair, William Taylor, David Thompson
NIAPA – Sean Fitzpatrick, Owen Cunningham
NSA – Edward Adamson, Crosby Cleland
NBA – John Carson
LMC – Mike Tempest
CAFRE – Sam Kennedy

Since its launch on 3rd October 2007, the findings of the NI Red Meat Task Force Report have been presented to
farming, trade, processing, levy and agricultural research organisations to secure industry wide support. There has
been a number of key outcomes.

NI Red Meat Task Force Report

Summmary of findings