Irish pig producers simply cannot continue to operate at current margins says the chairman of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) pigs committee, Pat O’Flaherty.
Warning that there is “growing concern about the long term viability of the industry” in Ireland, Mr O’Flaherty urged the Irish food promotional organisation, Bord Bia, to “up the ante on promotional campaigns on the home market” as well as committing additional resources towards pigmeat sector interests in relation to the Asian markets, in an effort to increase exports.
Reporting on the last full week of trading, the IFA said that prices in Germany “stood on” as did Denmark and Belgium, while the Netherlands increased marginally.
IFA added, however, that the UK price remained stable, highlighting that it was running fully 20c/kg (14p/kg) above the Irish price.
“We are now well into the summer, when traditionally prices would be peaking,” said the IFA, “and yet we are 12% behind May 2014 prices.”
Factory pig throughput in Republic of Ireland export plants for the week ending May 2, was 63,428 head, which was 3,942 more than in the corresponding short week in 2014. Slaughtering’s in ROI export plants are currently 7.8% ahead of the same period in 2014.