This article is from page 59 of the 2008-09-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 59 JPG
THE ICSA has joined in a protest against a requirement from Tesco that farmers should disclose detailed and sensitive information from their accounts, as part of the supermarket group’s new contract stipulation.
The protest, which involved farm- ing organisations that are part of the FFE umbrella (Fairness for Farm- ers in Europe), was held outside the Tesco group headquarters outside London last Tuesday.
According to ICSA president Mal- colm Thompson, “this new contract clause, which currently applies to British farmer milk suppliers to Tes- co UK, 1s the thin end of the wedge. ICSA is deeply concerned that this clause must be opposed before it be- comes the norm for all suppliers of farm produce to Tesco, not just in the UK but in Ireland as well.”
“T want to send a very clear signal to Tesco and other retailers that Irish farmers will not wear any such de- mands. It is absolutely unacceptable that Tesco should demand the disclo- sure of detailed information on costs and profitability from a farmer’s accounts to any third party agency. The clear implication is that Tesco is looking for justification to squeeze
farmer margins even more. Such in- formation is a private matter for farm families and is commercially sensi- tive.
“I don’t see Tesco offering open
and transparent information on how much margin they are making on farm products such as milk, beef or lamb. But we do know that the farm- er’s share of the final retail price has
dropped substantially over the past 25 years and this is the primary reason why so many farmers are no longer able to make a fair living. For ex- ample, in the case of beef, Irish farm-
ers were obtaining over 75 per cent of the final retail price in 1973, the figure now is about one-third. This indicates clearly that farmers’ mar- gins have been squeezed to the point of no return and this trend coincides with the increasing dominance of the retail trade across Europe by a hand- ful of very dominant multinationals.
‘There is no need for Tesco or any other retailer to obtain such sensi- tive information from individual farmers. If Tesco want a handle on farming profitability, they can eas- ily get overall industry figures from sources such as the Teagasc National Farm Survey which will demonstrate the tight margins that farmers oper- ate on. In the case of beef and lamb, farmers are actually losing money on production and are using their Single Farm Payment to survive. This is not sustainable.
“ICSA will not stand for such inva- sive clauses in contracts and we are determined that this approach will not be allowed to be mainstreamed into Irish retailing. Today is the first step in our declaration of opposition to this,’ he concluded.