IFA pig chair Roy Gallie has warned that pig farmers are “on a fast trajectory to bankruptcy” and have never faced such a severe income crisis.

Gallie and his team met with store managers from Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi and SuperValu at The Square Town Centre in Tallaght, Dublin, on Monday to seek “understanding and support” ahead of formal meetings with supermarkets next week.

They also urged retailers to sell Bord Bia quality assured pigmeat.

Gallie said: “In 1986, we got 50p/lb for pigs; that equates to €1.40/kg. Today, 36 years later, we are getting €1.42/kg.

IFA pig committee chair Roy Gallie. \ Finbarr O'Rourke

“Inflation has eroded the power of that €1.42/kg by exactly half, so, in effect, we are expecting half the price we got in 1986 to pay for all the costs associated with living in 2022.”

Gallie described this as an impossible task, considering the prices of barley and wheat, which have risen by 50% in the last year to “historic highs”.

IFA president Tim Cullinan and Gallie met with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue on Tuesday, when they told him that pig farmers are losing €37.84/pig.

They called on the minister to bring tangible measures to ease the crisis to a stakeholder meeting next week.

European agriculture ministers raised the issue of emergency funding in Brussels this week.

Minister McConalogue and the Czech agriculture minister both called for “exceptional and urgent” supports to be made available to pig farmers in the EU.

Brian Dowley, Tullow, Co Carlow

Brian Dowley.

Dowley is losing roughly €8,000 per week on his 450-sow farm, as feed costs exceed pig prices.

“The Government are aware of it, but they’re doing nothing. At least the retailers might be able to pass us back something from their sales, with the hope that the price of pigs will increase in the future.”

Seán Brady, Killucan, Co Westmeath

Seán Brady.

“Irish pork is too cheap and retailers can’t keep selling it like that. You’d be hoping to get an increase and at the moment, to cover all feed costs, you’d want to be at €1.80/kg or €1.90/kg. We hope prices will increase fairly shortly or maybe the Government could help us out for a six-month period to get over this rough spell.”

Joe Healy, Glenbrien, Co Wexford

“We’re selling at 20% below the cost of production. This hasn’t changed for four to five months now and it is getting worse.

“€2/kg would barely cover us today. We have no business at the moment and if this went on for another four months, that would be the end of it,” the Wexford farmer said.

Tom Hogan, Anglesboro, Co Limerick

Tom Hogan.

“Our feed costs have gone up something like €80/t since last year and every €10/t increase in the price of feed is the equivalent of 4c/kg,” said Hogan.

“We are losing around €35 a pig and if you take a 500-sow unit that would be selling about 240 pigs a week, that’s the guts of €7,000 or €8,000 every week.”