Farmers finishing lambs have been told to hold out for €7.00/kg, with anything less than this resulting in selling below the cost of production.
This is according to the sheep chair of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), Sean McNamara, who has blasted the latest factory cuts for lambs and said it has “gone beyond a joke” at this stage.
The ICSA sheep chair told Agriland: “It’s a farce the way prices are. It’s completely unviable finishing lambs at the moment.
“The minimum price needed for finishing a lamb is €7.00/kg to cover the costs of production and I’d urge farmers with lambs to hold them back.
“It’s got to a point where farmers are currently holding back [animals] from the factory because it’s just gone beyond a joke and they have said enough is enough.”
Price cuts for lambs
“This tactic of factories to continue to lower prices can’t continue and if suppliers hold lambs back, it will force processors to step up and move prices forward,” McNamara continued.
The ICSA representative went on to say that what factories are offering amounts to nearly giving the lambs away free gratis.
“Factories continue to bring live lambs from Northern Ireland via Scotland and truck loads of carcass from lamb to undermine the price of the quality lamb product being produced here by Irish farmers,” he said.
“Farmers have, and continue to produce a prime-quality lamb product. It’s time factories stood by them and stop driving the price down with lamb from the UK.
“Farmers are paying extortionate prices for feed and their efforts to finish lambs leave them empty handed the way the current trade is.”
McNamara added that lamb from New Zealand flooding into the EU market is not helping the trade at home and said more needs to be done by Bord Bia to market Irish lamb properly.