Protestors and farmers are now in a Mexican stand-off. Processors won’t talk until farmers leave the gates, and farmers won’t leave the gates until processors enter talks. We are looking at disaster.

The processors bear the primary responsibility in this regard. Their refusal to engage in talks while farmers were blocking their gates is understandable, but is wrong.

The old saying “jaw-jaw is better than war-war” holds true here.

None of the farmer representatives in the discussions are directly linked to this second round of protests, and indeed some have been instrumental in de-escalating some of the protests.

It’s being said that there are too many farmer spokespeople for constructive talks to occur. It’s less important that beef farmers have one voice speaking for them than that beef farmers speak with one voice.

To that end, perhaps the time spent waiting for processors to re-engage should see the IFA, Beef Plan, ICSA, ICMSA, INHFA, Macra and indeed the Independent Farmers get their heads together and agree a common, narrow, agenda.

There’s little point opening negotiations on 12 or 13 points and expecting delivery on all or most of them in one go –the world just doesn’t work that way. This may be the last chance for peace.

Most issues will have to be held over for now. Some issues are not make or break. The 30-month rule – rightly or wrongly – has become the lead issue. That must be sorted.

Now that it has been clearly established that price can be discussed, it must be the second significant item.

Commitment

And what of the protestors at the gates? They have put huge commitment into these protests, but the danger is that they will stay on the gates because they can’t think of a way to leave them.

Every single farmer must understand the consequences of their actions from here on in. If this goes on for another couple of weeks, some finishers, who have hardly killed an animal for seven weeks, will be out of business.

And, finally, we have the strange case of Slaney Foods.

When finalising an agreement with protesting farmers last Thursday, the company wanted to kill on Saturday, to reduce the backlog. It resumed on Monday by agreement, with the protest permanently stood down.

So why did the factory not kill on Tuesday? Or Wednesday? And workers are reporting a long lay-off?

Does this not raise the question that the factories might all be working together.