IFA protest over lamb prices

A small delegation from the Irish Farmers" Association (IFA) met with representatives from Tesco and Dunnes in Mullingar last week to discuss the current losses incurred by farmers selling lambs to large aupermarket chains.Led by Westmeath IFA chairman Paddy Donnelly the delegation asked that farmers be given an extra €10 per lamb which would raise profit to between €90 and €100 as opposed to the current €70.The protests in Mullingar were part of a nationwide campaign which will run until Wednesday of this week (October 8).'At the minute farmers are often producing lambs at a loss and we are warning supermarkets that eventually farmers will stop rearing sheep because there is no financial incentive to,' said Mr Donnelly.'The current position is that it costs €434 to rear each lamb and a farmer can get as little as €360 from a sale but a supermarket can make €270 in the one week that they have the meat on sale which is very unfair if you think that the farmer spent five months rearing it.'When a farmer makes a profit at all it can be as little as €70 and what we are asking is that supermarkets give and extra €10 per lamb so that the farmer can be assured that he will get something back for his efforts.'There are currently only 2.5 million sheep being reared in Ireland where as a generation ago it was more like seven million and we wanted to make the supermarkets aware that this figure will continue to dwindle if the financial rewards for farmers continue to be so poor.'The upshot of all of this is that the production of Irish organic lamb which is grass fed and quality assured could be in danger and stores will be looking to New Zealand for supplies.'Irish lamb is sold at between 16 and 17 weeks and is not injected with hormones but we cannot guarantee the same for lamb produced elsewhere.'The management of Tesco have taken our issues on board and said that they will be discussing the problem at meetings in the coming weeks. The delegation in Mullingar was the first step in our plans to protest. It was really a small group of farmers meeting with management but the next time we plan to have more IFA members out on the ground,' said Mr Donnelly.