DUP MP Sammy Wilson joined a protest against the importation of goods from Britain to Northern Ireland.
The East Antrim representative joined a group of farmers staging a protest against ASDA importing potatoes and selling them for just 8p per two kilogramme bag.
Mr Wilson, with a voting record in Westminster 97% in favour of a free market within the United Kingdom, said the supermarket chain has “questions to answer”, according to a BBC report on Saturday’s protest outside ASDA’s Larne depot.
“Asda are supplying local customers. They’ve got local suppliers who could make potatoes available to those customers and they’ve decided that rather than buy locally they’re going to buy from England,” the MP said.
“The main part of the year for their market is Christmas and they’re being excluded by a big supermarket. This goes totally against the promises which supermarkets make about buying local.”
Mr Wilson added that “squeezing” farmers out of business in the long run would “make food sustainability much more difficult”.
The MP was contacted for further comment.
According to Agriland, the online publication, 10 farmers with seven tractors were involved in the protest in Larne following the decision to import the potatoes for sale at the rock bottom price. The supermarket giant is selling a range of vegetables of different weights for 8p.
In a statement, an Asda spokesperson said: “The overwhelming majority of our potatoes sold in Northern Irish stores are locally sourced and we are proud to support local growers in Northern Ireland all year round.”
The offer ahead of Christmas was “to support families when they need it most”.
“We understand the frustration from local growers around imported produce being used in these offers and have been listening carefully to their feedback over the past few days,” the spokesperson said.
One protestor told Agriland: “We do not need potatoes coming in from Great Britain. There are lots of high quality, home grown potatoes available at the present time.
“The action taken by Asda has totally decimated the local potato market, leaving farmers to carry the burden of it all.
“There are literally thousands of tonnes of potatoes in store on farms across Northern Ireland. This is the produce that should be featuring on Asda shelves at realistic prices.”
In a statement, Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) chief executive, Wesley Aston, said his organisation will be meeting with all the supermarkets in Northern Ireland “to secure pricing policies that fully reflect farmers’ full costs of production”.
He said: “Individual retailers may well say that they are covering the costs of specific, cut-price promotions. But this still leaves open the door for others to push ahead with special offers while expecting farmers to cover the costs.”
ASDA added: “We have agreed to discuss these concerns further with the UFU (Ulster Farmers' Union) early in the new year.”
