Production at most of the 27 beef factories in the State will be hit today as farmers across the country refuse to take their cattle to factories where Irish Farmers' Association members are protesting.
The IFA protest began at 4.30 p.m. yesterday over the prices members have been receiving for their cattle during the past six weeks. The protests will end at 4.30 p.m. today.
Only token protests are taking place at plants to avoid confrontation with the Competition Authority.
The withholding of cattle from the processors, which the IFA said is a matter for individual farmers, is causing concern to the processing industry.
Last night Meat Industry Ireland (MII), representing the factories, called on the IFA to call off the action before further damage was done to the industry.
"The protest action, which will disrupt normal processing activity and which is aimed at forcing processors to pay uneconomical cattle prices, is contrary to the National Partnership Process, of which farmers are participants and beneficiaries," said Mr Cormac Healy of the MII.
"Beef processors need to be able to plan their business on the basis of the marketplace. It is unacceptable that the entire beef processing industry is faced with disruption by such counter-productive protests.
"The uncertainty created by this action seriously hinders processors' ability to plan production, roster their workforce, reschedule veterinary supervision, schedule deliveries and service customers for the early part of next week," Mr Healy added.
However, Mr Ruaidhrí Deasy, deputy president of the IFA, said the meat industry needed to abandon its cut-price strategy towards farmer suppliers, which has failed beef farmers, and realise that under the new decoupling policy, farmers cannot continue to produce beef at a loss.
Mr Deasy said the severe cattle price cuts by the factories in recent weeks, amounting to 34c/kg (12p/lb) or €115 per head, has wiped out any possibility of profit from cattle farming this autumn.
And it has seriously damaged relations between the beef factories and their farmer suppliers at this crucial time for the beef sector, he added.
Mr Deasy said cattle farmers feel cheated by the meat factories, particularly as the markets had been transformed in the last number of years from a huge dependence on intervention and low-priced third country markets to over 80 per cent of Irish beef now going to high-priced commercial markets in Britain and the Continent.
Mr John Bryan, chairman of the IFA beef committee, said farmers were fed up with the constant propaganda from the meat factories and their agents that cattle prices must be reduced.
He said the only solution the factories offer to the challenges in the market-place is lower producer prices.
However, Mr Healy said that so far this year, cattle prices have been trending 12-14 per cent higher than last year and have been at their highest for five years, so it was difficult to appreciate why producer representatives are continually dissatisfied.
"Today's difficulties arise from a sharp rise in finished cattle supplies, coinciding with a period of unexpectedly poor demand in the market-place for beef. The protest action will not change the commercial reality of the marketplace," he said.
He repeated that market returns have driven prices down, and that the level of imports by the EU - as well as the uneconomical prices farmers paid for young stock earlier this year - have added to the difficulties.