The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) says that following its national campaign, a pig price increase to €2/kg has been secured.

IFA pig chair Roy Gallie said some farmers are now receiving quotes of €2/kg from a number of processing plants on the island of Ireland.

The increase comes following what the IFA says has been a national campaign to secure increases in the pig price for farmers who have been haemorrhaging massive financial losses for almost a year now.

‘Keep pressure’

Gallie called on the “processors who are not paying €2/kg” to do so this week.

“The situation is critical at farm level given the financial losses that have accumulated.

“I would encourage all farmers to keep pressure on those primary processors who are lagging for a further increase this week to get to €2/kg, which is now available,” he said.

‘Far from breakeven’

The IFA pig chair pointed out that a pig price of €2/kg is far from breakeven and that farmers are still losing between €35 and €40 per pig sold. He warned that further increases must be delivered back to farmers from the market.

“We hear a lot about the EU ‘farm to fork’ plan, but pig farmers need more money to come from the fork back to the farm,” he said.

The IFA says its pig committee has held numerous protests over the past number of months to achieve the increase in pig price from a low of €1.42/kg to the €2.00/kg available today.

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