Addressing reports of an imminent supermarket price war, ICMSA President, Pat McCormack, said that both farmers and all those alarmed by the current climate crisis are entitled to wonder whether reductions have been sustainability-tested.
Mr McCormack said: “As usual, the price of food was deemed to be a matter for the supermarkets alone with no place or room for the longer-term considerations of sustainability and environmental consequences”.
He added that despite the direct line between sustainable food production and environmental welfare, there was a “deafening silence” from State-supported agencies.
“Why did these groups have absolutely nothing to say on a decision by the supermarkets that did not even pretend to reference sustainability?
“It is high time to ask publicly why sustainability was to be the governing principle for farmers in rural Ireland, but a matter of choice or public relations for the corporate retailers – the most powerful link in the food-supply chain,” he said.
