Meats plants have been accused of mounting 'unwarranted and unacceptable efforts' this week to ‘pull’ beef prices to farmers, by the Chairperson of ICMSA’s Livestock Committee, Des Morrison.
orrison said there was no foundation in fact for the attempts to drop the prices paid to farmers.
He said in a week when beef exports to China have commenced, where there is a suspect BSE case in Brazil, and where the EU and UK market for beef is solid, there is absolutely no market basis for meat plants to cut the price paid to farmers.
"What we are actually seeing now is the meat plants emptying their own feedlots to artificially boost cattle supplies and so drive down prices to farmers.
"They want to undermine farmer confidence by cutting prices in a way that will allow them to replenish their feedlots again through reduced farmer confidence around the mart ring. It’s very cynical and has no basis in real data and real figures”, said Morrison.
At a time when farmers are supplying finished cattle to meat plants after a year of unprecedented input cost increases, the ICMSA Chairperson said it is hugely disappointing that meat plants would attempt to undermine their own suppliers.
But Mr Morrison said the attempts would fail: “The reality is that cattle supplies will be tight until at least June. The beef supplied by farmers during this period will have been expensively produced and meat plants are simply going to have to pay a price for that beef that reflects and reaches above the cost of production.
"These attempts to ‘pull’ prices will fail because the facts won’t change and can be ascertained by all”, he said
Morrison said that there is no basis for any reduction in beef prices and it was cynical opportunism on the part of meats plants to “empty their feedlots and ramp-up supply”.
He said that the ‘real numbers’ would not change, and farmers should resist any attempt to make them accept lower prices in the coming weeks.
‘Factory quotes for cattle are not back — it has just become clearer what they won’t pay,” one factory agent when told the Farming Independent on Monday,
The trade is said to have steadied and that top-end prices and bottom-end quotes were both back 5c/kg.
Among the things driving this “steadying” of the trade — ie price reduction — is the impressive kill of 32,444 for the week ending February 12, despite the Bank Holiday.
However, some factories are also reported to be going on to a four-day working week, which has been described as a concern.
