The IFA pigs committee has been campaigning nationally to secure increases in the pig price for farmers who have been haemorrhaging massive financial losses for almost a year now.

IFA pigs committee chair Roy Gallie said some farmers are now receiving quotes of €2/kg from a number of processing plants in Ireland.

“Those processors who are not paying €2/kg must do so this week. The situation is critical at farm level, given the financial losses that have accumulated,” he said.

“I would encourage all farmers to keep pressure on those primary processors who are lagging for a further increase this week to get to €2/kg, which is now available,” he said.

Gallie pointed out that €2/kg is far from breakeven. Farmers are still losing between €35 and €40 per pig sold.

He said further increases must be delivered back to farmers from the marketplace, calling it a “fork to farm strategy”.

More money

“We hear a lot about the EU ‘farm to fork’ plan, but pig farmers need more money to come from the fork back to the farm,” he said.

The IFA pigs committee has held numerous protests over the past number of months to achieve the increase in pig price from a low of €1.42/kg to €2/kg today.

Project Woodland review lacks vision

IFA farm forestry chair Jason Fleming is very concerned by the lack of vision in the recommendations of the Project Woodland regulatory review report to create a workable licensing system for forestry at farm-scale.

“It is hard to see from the recommendations put forward in the report that farmer confidence in forestry as a viable land use will be restored,” said Fleming. “I am disappointed with the recommendation to maintain the licence requirement for thinning operations, despite multiple examples being provided in the report that this is not the case in other European countries,” he added.

He said that such reform would have significantly reduced the pressure on the system and allowed farmers to manage their forests according to a forest management plan and the principles of sustainable forest management.

“The report does recommend that procedures are introduced to ensure that forest road applications are considered in parallel with any associated applications for afforestation or thinning licence,” he said.