‘Thousands of pig farming jobs at risk’

THOUSANDS of workers on Ireland’s 500 pig farms are at risk of losing their jobs as the sector is suffering cumulative losses of around €1 million a week, according to Irish Farmers Association (IFA) president John Bryan.

Mr Bryan told delegates at the IFA’s annual general meeting the farm group would be intensifying pressure on processors to secure better prices from retailers and to pass those gains back to farmers.

The IFA will also put pressure on Government to introduce a long-promised code of practice for retailers, and pressurise banks and feed millers to ensure finance is available to help farmers meet feed bills that have almost doubled in the last six months alone.

Attendees at yesterday’s AGM, in the Irish Farm Centre in Dublin, heard the €1m weekly losses being sustained by pig farmers were due to pigs costing €125 each to produce for a sale value of only €110. With Irish farmers producing 60,000 pigs per week, the sector is already in deep crisis. The plight of pig farmers is being exacerbated by the fact that any unit price increases which retailers have given to the meat factories are not being passed on to the farmer.

John Bryan said: “Rocketing feed prices have placed pig producers in an extremely serious cost-price squeeze. Pig farmers need to get a better price out of the marketplace. The banks have a liquidity fund of €2 to €3 million. We have been asking the Government to come in and get that money freed up.

“If the sector keeps on moving towards the marketplace lowest common denominator, then we will see Irish pigmeat eventually being replaced on supermarket shelves by imports from under-regulated markets. We have to deal with that issue urgently. The pigmeat sector is worth €350m a year to the Irish economy, with up to 500 farms sustaining countless jobs.

“If retailers keep on taking the margins they are taking from the pig sector, you will see many pig farmers going out of business. Because we export 80-90% of our overall retail product, to rebalance the EU market, the Commission must introduce export funds. That may take longer to achieve.

“In Ireland, the IFA’s pigmeat committee has made good progress in increasing the volume of quality assured Irish product in the supermarkets up to 70%. However, the producers are not getting any benefit from this.”

Mr Bryan said the situation is at crisis point, and the survival of the Irish pig industry depended on a fairer approach by processors, banks releasing funds to the sector, and the introduction of export funds at EU level. These interventions would need to be underpinned by a new code of retail conduct.

Meanwhile, IFA general secretary, Pat Smith, noted liquid milk producers would need an average price of 38c per litre in 2011 just to cover projected increases in production costs.

At the present 32c per litre price being paid by retailers, dairy farmers could be under real pressure next year, he said.