Fertiliser prices are still high on the agenda, but as Agriland heard this week at Carnaross Mart, fuel, energy and feed costs are also having a huge impact on farmers and farm families.

Most farmers feel that although the price of food continues to increase, they are not seeing a corresponding upturn in the farm-to-shelf price difference.

Farmers told Agriland that their price has not kept in line with increases – whether that is input costs or shelf price.

Carnaross viewpoint

But we also heard that many believe the beef market is currently very strong and that they are getting a good price for their produce at sales.

We heard from Carnaross Mart manager, Padraig McElroy who warned that: “Food is expensive, but all the inputs are expensive as well.”

He said the input costs that have affected him most over the past 12 months were meal, fertiliser and the cost of renting land.

McElroy also said that costs are not keeping in line with inflation, and suggested the government should introduce a levy on certain inputs.

Food price

The impact of cost inflation on farmers has been under the spotlight again following the meeting between the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and retailers last week.

Minister Neale Richmond hosted a special meeting of the Retail Forum to discuss food price inflation in Ireland and said while farmers and producers were not members of the retail forum he believed that the prices paid to farmers had to be protected.

Minister Richmond said: “Our farmers haven’t seen the prices they’re paid at the farmgate increase at the same rate we’ve seen prices go up at the checkout, despite very real increases in costs for them from fertiliser to energy and much more.”

Separately, Macra has written to the government calling for farmer input to be included in future meetings of the Retail Forum.

Macra president, John Keane said that he is “astonished” that the forum, which has 35 members, has “not one representative of the primary food producers in Ireland”.