Stakeholders in the poultry sector have been invited to attend an IFA-organised meeting in Cork city this Monday to discuss the recent heightening of the input costs required to produce poultry meat and eggs.

The topics up for discussion will include rising feed costs, feed availability concerns, rising energy prices and food pricing policies, the IFA’s poultry chair Nigel Sweetnam has said.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Sweetnam stated that the IFA had been granted a commitment by the major retailers to increase the cost of the chickens they sell to consumers by 15c.

The pressure placed on retailers at recent IFA demonstrations, as well as IFA president Tim Cullinan’s highlighting of the price promotion tactics of supermarkets in front of the Joint Oireachtas Committee, have been the driving forces behind this commitment to deliver higher prices to farmers, explained Sweetnam.

15c no longer enough

The 15c per chicken price increase had been a key priority of the IFA’s poultry committee, along with increasing the price of eggs by 2c apiece, when meeting with supermarkets to discuss the income crisis facing farmers in the sector.

Given the recent feed and energy price hikes since Russia invaded Ukraine, these figures are now insufficient to leave farmers with the margins they need to remain in business, Sweetnam explained.

The IFA meeting is set to take place in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Little Island, Co Cork, on 7 March at 8pm.