Lamb Price Cuts Must Stop – IFA

Highlighting that the level of cuts to lamb prices by factories must be stopped following a meeting of the IFA National Sheep committee, Aidan Gallagher, IFA National Sheep Chair said:  

“Members reflected the huge anger, frustration and despondency of sheep farmers at the depth and speed of the price cuts exerted by factories on lamb prices: cuts of over 20% or nearly €40/lamb in the space of just a few weeks.” 

Mr. Gallagher emphasised that the future of the country’s sheep sector is on a knife edge evident from the numbers from 2023 published recently which show a drop in numbers in all key areas of the sheep sector. The number of farms keeping sheep dropped by over 1,000; the number of breeding ewes dropped by 3.7%; and the overall number of sheep were down 7%.  

“The severity of the price cuts is only adding to this exodus, with commercial sheep farmers in the main not having benefited from the historically high prices paid for hoggets earlier in the year.  As they come to selling their lambs, they are facing into prices, which, at best, are similar to last year.  This will have consequences for breeding decisions on these farms and will impact supplies for next year.” 

The chair said that factories need to realise that sheep farmers will not keep working for such low prices. He also criticised EU trade agreements that allowed access to sheep meat from the Southern Hemisphere into the Irish market.  

“The Food Regulator must address the lack of transparency in the food supply chain for sheep meat. We know what farmers get for lamb, we know what consumers pay for our lamb, but there is no visibility of what all other players between the farm gate and the consumer gets. This recent slashing of farm gate lamb prices has yet again highlighted the need for the Regulator to provide this transparency.  Farmers’ prices are back over 20%, but we are not seeing similar price reductions on the supermarket shelves,” he said. 

Finally, Aidan Gallagher called on the Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, to extend the €8/ewe national exchequer sheep scheme into 2025 and to bring total direct supports for ewes to €30/ewe.  

Over the coming days the IFA Sheep chairman will be leading discussions with factories to voice the concerns of farmers in the sheep sector countrywide.