The “depth and speed” of price cuts implemented by factories on lamb prices is driving farmers to frustration and despondency, the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) national sheep chair is warning.
Adrian Gallagher said factories have made cuts of more than 20% or nearly €40/lamb in the space of “just a few weeks” on lamb prices.
He is now calling on factories to “wake up to the reality that farmers will not keep working for nothing”.
According to Gallagher the future of the sector is “on a knife edge”.
The IFA has pointed to recent census figures for 2023 which underline a drop in key metrics across the sector – the number of farms keeping sheep dropped by over 1,000, while the number of breeding ewes dropped by 3.7% and the overall number of sheep were down 7%.
Gallagher added: ““The severity of the price cuts is only adding to this exodus, with commercial sheep farmers in the main not having benefited from the historically high prices paid for hoggets earlier in the year.
“As they come to selling their lambs, they are facing into prices, which, at best, are similar to last year.
“This will have consequences for breeding decisions on these farms and will impact supplies for next year”.
He has also cautioned that factories could one day be in a position of “not having a consistent year-round supply of lambs from processing”.
Sheep sector
According to the IFA Bord Bia has a key role to play in supporting the sector with a “targeted and intensive marketing campaign for our lamb”.
Separately Gallagher believes that Irish farmers have been “badly let down by trade agreements at EU level allowing increased access for sheep meat from the Southern Hemisphere onto our market”.
He also feels that that Brexit has created additional pressures for farmers because of “trade deals agreed by the UK” which Gallagher said is allowing “additional product in from these regions”.
The IFA national sheep chair is now appealing to the Food Regulator to address what he has described as “the lack of transparency in the food supply chain for sheep meat” and also to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to put “meaningful supports” in place for sheep farmers.
“The Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, must extend the €8/ewe national exchequer sheep scheme for 2025 and build on it to bring total direct supports for ewes to €30/ewe when combined with the Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS) payment,” Gallagher added.