Farmers For Action’s (FFA) steering committee has labelled the current level of farmgate beef and lamb prices “a disgrace” and has said that they must change to reflect production costs.
FFA’s Sean McAuley believes that between corporate food retailers, corporate food processors and farmers, it’s the latter being left in the lurch.
“Farmers’ fair share of the food cake is now believed to be as low as 8% – should instead be 33.3% of retail,” he said.
“One third for the farmers, one third for the processors and one third for the retailers, as a rule of thumb.
“Today, beef and lamb prices at the abattoir should be well over £7/kg to allow for a sustainable living for farmers in those sectors.
“Many farmers blame the corporate food processors who indeed certainly take their profits, but do so after a continuous price battle with corporate food retailers,” he said.
“However, those same corporate food processors keep coming back to the farmgate price paid to rake in their millions – and this has got to stop.
“In addition, the pressure on livestock farmers of a non-delivering veterinary department resulting in a bTB (bovine tuberculosis) explosion and BVD (bovine viral diarrhoea) eradication failure means all these pressures on farmers and their families and staff cannot be allowed to continue.”
Farmgate prices
The FFA said that the time has come for Northern Ireland’s family farmers to have a legal say in the creation of farmgate price minimums across all food produced on Northern Ireland farms, reflecting a minimum of the cost of production plus a margin inflation linked.
This legal say, the association said, takes the form of the NI Farm Welfare Bill, which it believes needs to be implemented now more than ever.
“Farmers For Action and the other members of NI Farm Groups who are currently taking the bill forward want all rural dwellers to pile the pressure on their MLA’s to return to an active Stormont as soon as possible and appoint strong and ruthless ministers to weed out the non-functioning civil servants forthwith and take the NI Farm Welfare Bill forward to transform Northern Ireland’s place in the league of wealthy nations across town and countryside alike,” McAuley said.