Irish producers are “quietly receiving an extra few cent for pigs this week” according to the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) although the latest official figures don’t yet show any increase in values.
“There were rumblings on Friday (last week) that prices would rise,” said IFA pigs committee chairman, Pat O’Flaherty, before adding that the expected upturn didn’t materialise “much to the disappointment of producers”.
“Although there was no official increase, however, demand is reportedly picking up on the domestic market and some producers are quietly receiving an extra few cent for pigs this week as a result,” he said, noting that poor weather across Europe appeared to have turned “an expected increase in demand for the barbeque season into a sales slump”.
With only the “extra few cents” evidence to go on, therefore, the IFA reported factory pig throughput in Republic of Ireland export plants for the week ending April 26 to have been 63,365 head, an increase of 15,219 on the corresponding week in 2014.