Irish pig market is more active than for “quite a while” says IFA

A “more active” market for pigs in Ireland has been reported by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), in its latest weekly trade statement.

IFA pigs committee chairman, Pat O’Flaherty, said that reports from producers would indicate that processors are more actively looking for pigs than they have been for quite a while.

“This is explained by a predicted tightening of supply over the coming weeks which may continue into the peak summer period and it looks like the factories are currently preparing for this,” he said. 

He also commented, however, that Irish producers must start seeing prices rising immediately as they simply cannot continue to operate in a negative margin as they have been over the last number of months.

For the week ending March 22, the Irish pig price was at 101% of the EU average.

Factory pig throughput in Republic of Ireland export plants for the week ending March 28, meanwhile, was 60,156 head which was 10,724 head more than the previous short week and 4,312 more than in the corresponding week in 2014.   Slaughtering’s in the Republic’s export plants is 7.5% ahead of the same period in 2014.