Confidence in the sheep sector is very low, with below-cost of production sheep prices and not enough targeted supports threatening the viability of the sector.
This is according to the sheep chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), Kevin Comiskey, who said that farmers can’t sustain the pressures they are under.
Speaking to Agriland, Comiskey said: “Lamb prices are well behind on last year and with the price of inputs, they simply cannot sustain or continue if prices don’t increase.
“We are hearing the same excuses from factories that product is hard to sell at the other end, but we consistently have been telling them that it isn’t our [the farmers] problem.
“Instead, it’s the factories along with Bord Bia’s job to be working on marketing and selling our prime product into existing and importantly new markets.
“The current state of the trade and the price increases of inputs this year has really knocked the sector and confidence is very low as a result.
“I was speaking to a farmer recently who bought stores in August when the trade was good, and those lambs are finished and ready to go and he says he will lose €20/head on them now.
“I know then of other farmers either cutting back ewe numbers or delaying the turnout of rams so that they can reduce the cost of inputs next spring and have grass to turn ewes and lambs out to in order reduce having to feed meal or at least as much of it.
“I have said many times that the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) hasn’t delivered for sheep farmers, nor has the budget this year.
“The Minister for Agriculture [Food and the Marine] has let us down and supports such as the Fodder Support Scheme although are all well in good, but for sheep farmers, particularly this side of the country, they wouldn’t have green acre to make silage or hay from and as such are little to good to them.
“Sheep farmers need proper direct supports that are going to help them tackle the rising costs they are dealing with because we are being left behind,” he said.
“I did a comparison with a committee member recently between a 15 suckler cow herd and a flock of 100 ewes. The supports you would get for those 15 cows would be €3,350, whereas for the ewes would be €1,200.
“It doesn’t make sense and we are going to be putting pressure on TD’s because we don’t seem to be getting through to the Minister for Agriculture [Food and the Marine].
“Not only that but, moreover, once again the wool sector is being cast aside with no word of how to progress it.
“The one thing to come out of the Wool Feasibility Study that we want to see happening, as it was the only thing to come out of it, was the formation of a Wool Council.
“So again, we will be pressing the Minister of State for Agriculture with responsibility for land use and biodiversity, Pippa Hackett to get the ball rolling here as it is critical as no one is winning from the state the sector is in.”