Irish pig farm leaders are forecasting an “inevitable” rise in prices over the next few weeks, despite reporting that values remain “disappointingly” static in Ireland at present.
“All of the major EU pig producing countries experienced price rises last week,” said the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) pigs committee chairman, Pat O’Flaherty, adding that these increases, coupled with the beginning of the BBQ season, will inevitably lead to a price lift in Ireland as well.
For the moment, however, he reported that Irish domestic prices “disappointingly stood on again this week”.
“Nevertheless, the strength of the US dollar would indicate that export markets are strong,” he said, further commenting that such current “positives” must be passed back by processors and reflected in producer prices.
IFA also reported that, for the week ending March 29, Ireland was at 101% of the EU pig price average.
Factory pig throughput in Republic of Ireland export plants for the week ending April 4, meanwhile, totalled 60,915 head, which was 759 head more than the previous week and 8,249 more than the corresponding week in 2014. Slaughtering’s in ROI export plants so far this year are 8.2% ahead of the same period in 2014.