Irish pig prices remain unchanged in the larger ROI plants this week with farmers receiving quotes of €1.40c/kg up to €1.44 or €1.46 – €1.50/kg.
Some farmers who are selling their pigs to other processing plants with a considerably lower throughput have received an increase of circa 10c/kg as of last Friday which is certainly a step in the right direction for those farmers, but with input costs having spiralled out of control, farmers require substantially larger increases on the price they receive for their pigmeat to help slow the unsustainable rate at which farmers are losing money.
Even with markets showing signs of recovery, and pig price moving slowly in the right direction, the increase required to reach break-even is far too large and slow for farmers to bear. Pig farmers have called for further supports from the government and have gone to Kildare Street to further highlight their extremely worrying concerns.
The European market is continuing to improve with pigmeat prices moving upward. The average European price now exceeds €1.70c/kg – however, not enough to meet break-even in most member states.
