Irish pig farming leaders are targeting processors and compound feed suppliers equally, in search of a much-needed improvement in margins for producers.
Following a pig sector crisis meeting in Ireland last week, the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has called on processors to increase pig prices immediately while also stating that a decrease in compound prices is “clearly justified”.
IFA pigs committee chairman, Pat O’Flaherty, said the message from producers was very clear, namely that farmers simply cannot continue to operate at the current negative margins.
“Feed prices were high on our crisis meeting agenda, based on current raw material costs,” he said, adding that, in that context, a feed price cut was justified.
Further highlighting the current plight on the Irish pig industry, the committee chairman said that Ireland was currently operating at 97% of the European average pig price.
Factory pig throughput in Republic of Ireland export plants for the week ending September 12, 2015, was 60,784 head, just short of 3000 more than in the corresponding week in 2014, reported IFA. Slaughtering’s in ROI export plants is running 6.9% ahead of the same period in 2014.