Cattle prices unsustainable: farmers

Members of the IFA Livestock Committee and the British NFU Livestock Board agreed at a meeting in Dublin that livestock farmers in Ireland and Britain needed to begin talks with major supermarket retailers and to bring beef producers closer to consumers.

The meeting also said cattle prices are unsustainable for livestock farmers.

Both sides acknowledged there was common ground between Irish and British livestock farmers because of trade.

In a joint statement after the meeting, they stated that price signals for beef are undermining producer confidence that there can be a profitable sustainable future for family farms.

"Livestock farmers are the foundation stone of the beef supply chain. But the supply chain can only work if everybody in the chain producers, livestock marts, processors and retailers makes a profit.

"The fact that suckler farmers and beef finishers in Ireland and Britain will make significant losses this year has serious implications for beef supplies going forward, unless producer confidence can be restored rapidly," they said.

The statement said producers had reached make or break. It was unsustainable to spend two years producing high-quality beef cattle to find the bottom had fallen out of the market.

"All players in the supply chain have to accept responsibility to address this issue."

Both sides agreed that quality beef producers in Ireland and Britain were particularly vulnerable in world trade negotiations and a limit on beef imports from South America had to be agreed.

They announced they would meet again shortly in London.