This year has been the most challenging of times seen within the Irish pig industry in the last 20 years.

The perfect storm arrived in the form of a cost price squeeze with massive increases in feed costs and a persistently low pig price.

Output across Europe was up and exports were down, which left the market saturated.

This was coupled with a summer drought which reduced harvest yields and increased raw material prices.

The weather also impacted upon slurry exports which saw transport costs increased as the slurry had to be moved further away from the farm.

In my own case, I have cut sow numbers by 10% this year. I also had to let a member of staff go.

I was leasing a unit outside of my farm – that had to go too.

Teagasc estimates the breakeven price for sustainable pig farming in this country is €1.50/kg.

It is predicted the average pig price for 2018 will be €1.40/kg and feed prices saw increases on average of €40/t since April, equating to a 16c/kg increase in feed costs.

This leads to farmers having to sell lighter pigs just to keep the cashflow going, which in turn leads to higher costs of production.

Prices

With factories having more than enough product, it negatively affects prices.

Unfortunately, the only way factories and secondary processors pay a fair price is when there is a slight scarcity.

With the Chinese herd being decimated by African swine fever and an expected increase in European pigmeat exports to the country, next year looks a lot brighter than this year. Unfortunately, however, we are now in the midst of a crisis – nobody seems to want to help, yet all other sectors within the industry seem to still have a margin.

For the year, performance on units has been positive with output increasing.

This has, however, led to even more pigmeat being available at a time when there is reduced demand for the product.

We as an industry ourselves have to look and see if it is viable for us to continue producing so much product when we might be better off selling 10 pigs for a profit rather than 11 for a loss.

We have to look as an industry to see if it is sustainable to continue producing excess pigmeat with no profit.

Would we not be better off if, as an industry, we regulated it so that we could produce enough for everybody in all sectors involved to have a margin?