Pig farming leaders in Ireland have drawn some domestic positives this week from good news elsewhere in the European pork sector, most notably Northern Ireland’s provisional approval for exports to China and Danish Crown’s increased bonus payment to farmers in Denmark.
While Republic of Ireland (ROI) prices remained unchanged at between a top of €1.40/kg (98p/kg) and a low of €1.36/kg (96p/kg), the chairman of the Irish Farmers Association’s pigs committee, Pat O’Flaherty, welcomed the return of some stability to the northern European market.
“Danish farmers enjoyed some positive news with Danish Crown announcing it will pay a dividend of 14c (10p) to producers for every kg of pork supplied in 2015, on the back of strong financial results in the co-op,” he said.
“Northern Ireland pork, meanwhile, has been provisionally approved for export to China, a move the industry has said will be worth £10m a year to the economy. The two processors in question, Karro and Dunbia, will export approx. 12,000 tonnes per year to China.”
ROI prices are currently operating at 106% of the EU average price as reported to the European Commission.
Factory pig throughput in ROI export plants for the week ending November 22, 2015, was 64,418 head which was 1,583 more than in the corresponding week in 2014, according to IFA figures. Slaughtering’s in ROI export plants is running 6.2% ahead of the same period in 2014.