ICMSA calls for 'all guns blazing' response to beef price cuts
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has hit out at beef processors for what the organisation claimed was "obviously transparent" attempts to control live and slaughter trade.
Michael O'Connell, the organisation's Livestock Committee chair, claimed that the factories were engaged in "scaremongering and bluffing", and called for an "all guns blazing rebuff" by farmers.
"Our advice is to be very sceptical of the ‘control mechanisms’ that factories are trying to apply; they are in their peak Christmas kill period and the demand for beef is intense," he said.
"As we always say, the data doesn’t lie, and slaughter throughput has drastically reduced versus 2024 and we have all read and heard the factories expressing frustration about the stability of their future supplies of cattle," O'Connell added.
"Where was the stability in farmers’ business models when factories undermined...farmers for the past 20 years?
"Factories weren't too worried about the stability and viability of the farmers producing cattle then.
"We are sure there is a fine bulky reserve of funds accumulated from years of underpaying farmers that can be used to pay the present prices for cattle," he said.
According to the ICMSA livestock chairperson, this week has seen factories attempting to cut the prices they were paying for prime cattle, including cull cows, as well as "talking down" the availability of flat prices for traditional breeds – specifically Angus cattle.
He also dismissed suggestions that the weather is ‘bringing stock out’, as well as of cattle being €2/kg ahead of where they were this time last year.
"That’s completely irrelevant; the margin between buying and selling is no different and one thing for certain is that farmer costs incurred haven’t decreased, or the workload.
"At this stage of the year with the inclement weather conditions, there is no beef cattle at grass, and we know that factories may have a few extra cattle available this week as they draw from their own feedlot cattle that they have been buying since mid-September," O'Connell said.
He added that this led to "a less vibrant mart trade over the last week".
"it’s a way of allowing factories to control mart price in a bid to buy replacement feeding cattle at their own price for their own feedlots," O'Connell said.
"With the throughput of cattle we have seen for the last number of months, it should have been relatively easy to fill a kill plan, particularly given that there have been very few or no plants slaughtering five days per week.
"Sooner or later, the factories are going to have to accept the reality that farmers cannot continue to purchase and feed cattle to be at at the mercy of the factory when they are fit to kill. It’s too much of a gamble.
"Farmers need to sell hard; they should meet the factories ‘all guns blazing’ and tell them that, if they need cattle to fill their Christmas orders, which they do, then they have to pay," the ICMSA livestock chair said.
