The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has warned policymakers that there is a serious possibility of New Zealand sheepmeat exerting the same pressure on Irish lamb prices as occurred with South American beef pushing down the price of EU beef.

The Oireachtas agriculture committee heard that farmers have “serious concerns” on the impact that the UK’s post-Brexit trade deals could have for Irish lamb entering both the UK and the EU.

New Zealand lamb could compete with Irish lamb on UK supermarket shelves and, on top of this, UK lamb could be priced out of its home market and spill over into the EU, according to the IFA’s livestock executive Tomas Bourke.

“If we look at the balance of supply and demand, demand is slightly above supply in the EU,” he explained.

“What undermines this position is no different to South American beef; it’s the New Zealand lamb that comes into the EU.”

NI imports and the UK

Bourke stated that around 20% of Ireland’s sheep output originates from Northern Ireland in either live or carcase form.

Farmers are asking “huge questions” on “what the role is” for having these imports being so high, Bourke told TDs and senators on Wednesday.

He said that processors maintain it needs these lamb imports to benefit from efficiencies of scale when operating meat factories.

“The big concern is the volume of New Zealand lamb that is currently allowed to come in without tariff, the additional volumes now that the UK is going to accept in from New Zealand,” the IFA executive commented.

These concerns apply “even more so for Australia”, which has a greater capacity to ramp up its output of lamb, said Bourke.

Transparency needed

IFA president Tim Cullinan told the committee that more had to be done to increase the transparency behind processor pricing.

He said that farmers should be able to see the prices paid for lamb in the markets in which Irish sheep exports are destined, similar to the beef price tracker introduced following the beef crisis of 2019.

“I think what would be absolutely essential here is if we had a lamb price tracker as well to be able to track the main markets we are exporting to. I think that would be very, very important,” Cullinan stated.

He also said that Bord Bia must focus on higher value markets to maximise farmers' returns from the market.