Following confirmation of a financial support package for farmers to cut silage, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue is being told “more needs to be done” to alleviate the input cost pressures for cattle and sheep farmers.
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) said this morning (Wednesday, May 4) that the silage support “is a step in the right direction” – but added that there was a need for more.
“[We] have strongly argued that the cattle and sheep sectors cannot carry the burden of massive inflation in feed, fertiliser and fuel costs, and we are meeting Minister McConalogue [tomorrow] to keep the pressure on,” said Dermot Kelleher, the association’s president.
According to Kelleher, ICSA members are saying that finishing cattle this winter will not be profitable “unless beef reaches €7/kg”.
“It is very worrying that many suckler farmers are now selling out when they see that selling a cull cow is more profitable than selling an in-calf cow. This is a real measure of suckler farming economics and it demonstrates clearly the need for more support if we want farming to survive in many of the more marginal areas,” Kelleher argued.
He asserted that the silage support scheme for cattle and sheep farmers – which is expected to pay up to €1,000/farmer – “is not enough”, though he acknowledged that it represented a recognition from government that those sectors “are under extreme pressure”.
The ICSA president asserted that sheepmeat processors are “attempting to cut lamb price even though prices are now lower than this time last year”.
“We want to see more support for fertiliser, especially now as natural gas price has started to rocket up again,” the president said.
The ICSA is also calling for “an investigation” into fuel prices, claiming that the price of diesel “should have fallen more in recent weeks, given the drop in the price of a barrel of oil”.
The farm organisation also said today that, as well as the input cost situation, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan, as it currently stands, “is a disaster for the cattle and sheep sectors”.
“Convergence is crushing the viability of many beef finishers but the failure to include a coupled payment for sucklers and sheep means that the new CAP is not fit for purpose,” Kelleher claimed.
“[We] will be arguing strongly for more targeted support from exchequer funds to alleviate the shortcomings of the CAP plan for cattle and sheep sectors,” he concluded.