URGENT NEED FOR PRICE RISE FOR BEEF FARMERS SAYS MONAGHAN ICSA SPOKESPERSON

Co Monaghan farmer Edmund Graham, who chairs the Beef Committee of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), called yesterday (Wednesday) for price rises for beef farmers to “become a reality, and quickly”. “the ICSA has been warning for months that beef prices must hit the €6/kg mark if farmers are to have any hope of coping with seriously inflated input costs,” the Beef Committee chairperson stated. “€5/kg is no cause for celebration when it doesn’t cover your cost of production, and if farmers in germany are achieving €6/kg, that is what we must demand also.

“There is no justification for prices here lagging so far behind what our European counterparts are getting for their beef. “We are facing the same price hikes in feed, fuel and fertiliser as they are but unlike them, we are not seeing any serious effort by processors here to increase prices to a level that adequately reflects the soaring cost of production. “All the while we are seeing the dairy processors bending over backwards to support their suppliers through these