A taskforce will be set up by European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos today to look at the long-term impact of last week's Russian ban on food imports from the EU.
Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said it was urgent to establish what sectors would be hit badly and what actions should be taken. "The solution may well be aids to private storage in some areas so that we can store some product while we are looking for new outlets," he said.
Mr Coveney said the value of Irish imports blocked by the sanctions was less than originally thought. Irish exporters sold €232 million worth of food and drink products to Russia last year but pigmeat exports were banned in January, lopping €60 million off that figure.
Mr Coveney said it now appeared that the ban would affect €8.2 million worth of product. “But to say that this problem is just an €8.2 million problem would be a bit of an understatement.”
Infant milk formula
He said some €77 million worth of tea extracts and €35 million worth of infant formula and high protein nutrition ingredients were unaffected by the ban. A further €12 million of drinks could also continue to be exported and €11 million worth of casein, a by-product of the cheese industry.
“The big challenge . . . is that about €10 billion worth of food and drink from all EU countries combined . . . must find another home and there is a fear that this will put pressure on European markets. A lot of Dutch cheese, for example, goes into Russia and where is that cheese going to go?”
Mr Coveney said a meeting of civil servants from all European countries would be held on Thursday to review the situation. He was speaking at Tullamore Show yesterday where he was called on to take action to restore confidence in the beef sector. IFA president Eddie Downey said the difficulties at farm level needed "urgent and decisive action" because livestock farmers could not survive another year of severe price and income cuts.
He said Mr Coveney must remove road blocks impeding the live export trade to the North. Mr Coveney said he was acutely aware of the difficulties in the sector and had been working on this issue with his counterpart in Northern Ireland.
