Farmers in Kerry are going head-to-head with the tourism industry in a tractor and trailer protest in Killarney this weekend. Anne Lucey reports.
The protest by individual farmers on Saturday, during the busiest bank holiday weekend of the year, is to highlight what they claim is the tourism industry's failure to support local beef.
Kerry's 3,000 beef farmers have complained in recent years that their product is being ousted by cheap imports. Meetings between the various farm organisations and the hotel industry resulted four years ago in A Taste of Kerry, a unique branding system. But the closure of the abattoir in Tralee last year saw that scheme fall by the wayside.
Now farmers say that while restaurants in Ireland's tourism industry are happy to label their fare as straight from the slopes of Mangerton and "the plains of Ardfert", the beef is really from the pampas of Argentina or the plateaus of Brazil.
Mr Willie Spring, the organiser of the protest and a founder member of Kerry Co-op, said he had received a lot of support. He expects hundreds of farmers to turn up with their tractors at the Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney, and continue to the roundabouts on the outskirts of the tourist town. The link with football was important, Mr Spring said.
"The massive GAA enterprise was founded by fellows from mountains and bogs and small farms. It's time we all stopped forgetting."
There is a market for around 40,000 beef heifers in Kerry, and about 1,000 are sold locally, Mr Spring claimed. "Some of the hotels are under the illusion they are buying Irish beef," he said.
Kerry farmers have found it easier to sell beef to the UK supermarket group Sainsbury's than to local hotels and restaurants in the multimillion euro tourism industry, he said.
Mr Pat Gill, chairman of the Irish Hotels Federation's Kerry branch, said the farmers were "biting the hand that fed them". The real target should be the meat factories and suppliers. "We have always understood we are buying Irish beef," Mr Gill said. The question had to be asked why local produce was not being sold, if that were the case. Was it a question of price, he asked.
Mr Flor McCarthy of the IFA said the tourism industry benefited hugely from farmers. He called for a stop to the ever- increasing volumes of meat imports being used by the industry. However, the IFA was not supporting the disruption of Killarney next weekend, he said.
The Killarney Chamber of Tourism and Commerce is appealing to farmers to change their plans.