One of the organisers of last week’s protest at Kerry Group’s headquarters in Tralee, Co. Kerry, has said that protests will continue, following the processor’s milk price announcement today (Monday, July 17).
Earlier, Kerry Group announced its milk price for June supplies, deciding to hold its offering of 37c/L from last month.
That followed on from two protests (one last week and one late last month) demanding that the processor bring its milk price in line with other processors.
Those protestors said that they have been paid 3.7c/L less than suppliers of neighbouring processor Dairygold for all milk supplied in the first five months of 2023, with the shortfall continuing for a sixth month after today’s Kerry Group price announcement.
Speaking to Agriland this afternoon (Monday, July 17), Pat Enright, one of the organisers of last week’s protest, expressed anger at today’s announcement by Kerry Group, and committed to further protest action.
“I’m angry. I’m disappointed. I have lots of calls from fellas already and they’re awfully disappointed and they want to know what the next move is. Fellas are depressed, their bills are mounting,” Enright said.
In his own case, Enright fears that he could see his income down around €70,000 this year compared to last year.
“There has to be consequences when you’re taking that much money out of a farmer’s pocket.
“I don’t know do people actually understand but its horrendous what’s going on farms. I was talking to a man there and he said, with the calls he’s getting, people are very very depressed,” the dairy farmer added.
According to Enright, Kerry have not acknowledged the earlier protests, saying that the business “seem to be ignoring us”.
Despite that, Enright committed to further protests, saying: “There’s a good few lads that have rang me there. We have no dates planned. I don’t know if we’re going to try and meet in the next couple of nights and see what we can do from here. But our last two protests, they have just seemed to laugh at.
“It isn’t up production is going in the future, It’s down it’s going. If you took Kerry out of the equation now and we looked to go to Dairygold or the west Cork [co-ops] or Tirlán, there’s plenty of processing capacity without Kerry in the country now.
“What Kerry has done today is just blackguarding, they’re just blackguarding us,” Enright added.
The farmer commented: “We will not be able to pay our bills by the end of the year. My worry is that if your not able to pay your bills by the end of the year, you just sit inside at home and you just have no interest in what you’re at.”