Farmers are slowly regaining their confidence in mechanical beef grading system. Brendan Smith, who is the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, said they are gradually restoring the monitoring structure. Trust in the scheme is boosted by their heightened inspection visits to different meat plants and department officials have also developed formal self check procedures to every machine and done close monitoring to classification results.
Precise meat classification is essential to farmers because in most cases this will be their basis of payment and these machines should always be in faultless condition for fair compensation and this is also for the consumer to receive what they have paid for, overall benefitting the general public in the end. Right now there are 23 machines operating in different plants accounting to about 90% supply of beef carcasses.
Mr. Smith said that since the introduction of these automated classifying machines in 2004, they have been meticulously doing unannounced inspections to be certain of their accuracy. It is said that the performance of the machine is based on EU regulations and applies the same scoring system to uphold a high quality of beef in the market.
In cases that a machine is operating beyond the guidelines of EU regulations, a plant will not be permitted for its usage until it has been scrutinized and restored by an engineer. These machines will also be re-checked by department officials before its operations.
This is one good step how the Irish people can get quality products in the market and hopefully the people governing these policies will continuously apply strict measures.
