Pig market: 30/07/2018

Prices reported to IFA

Comment: No good news this week again. After both Rosderra and Kepak reduced quotes by 4c/kg for last week’s kill, Dawn and Staunton’s did likewise last Friday. With a high price of €1.38c/kg, and some pig farmers taking less than this, the financial situation on all pig farms is deteriorating by the week. Credit for feed is at a greater time length than either compounders or farmers would like and the months ahead don’t look like giving much of a reprieve. At current margins over feed cost declining towards a paltry 30c/kg, farmers are losing serious money with every pig sold. The pig industry has been here before and the tide will turn, but will it improve in time for all pig farmers in current production to survive? IFA pigs chair Tom Hogan said he will consult all stakeholders, including Teagasc, the banks, feed merchants and providers, the primary and secondary pigmeat processors and the retailers. “Everybody involved in our business is under pressure and it is only by working together that our industry has a chance of survival,” he said.