The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has estimated that Irish beef farmers lost out on €8.5m as a result of a ‘price slide’ in February.

ICMSA livestock committee chair Des Morrison said: “This episode now joins the lengthening list of mysterious and unexplained sudden downward turns in farmers' beef prices.

“The lack of farmer confidence in the sector is palpable and has reached the stage where the factories themselves must see that future year-round supplies were no longer guaranteed.”

Challenge to MII

The ICMSA has said that farmers’ suspicions had hardened into a general acceptance that factory prices were set at the whim of executives looking for a reason to cut.

“That is the suspicion and the only way of allaying that is for the factories to explain their rationale and logic when they decide to cut as quickly and deeply as they did in the four weeks of February.

“That’s our challenge to MII [Meat Industry Ireland] or anyone else that wants to take it up. We’re nearly three weeks on, so it must be clear now what the ‘chain of evidence’ was and whether it was justified. Let’s hear it.”