The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has slammed beef processors for mounting “unwarranted and unacceptable” efforts to pull prices this week.

Such efforts are in defiance of all the beef market facts and data and there is no foundation for any form of price cut, ICMSA livestock committee chair Des Morrison 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,” he warned.

Feedlots

Morrison suggested that beef processors are instead trying to empty their own feedlots to “artificially boost” cattle supplies and drive down the prices received by 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,” he said.

The Sligo farmer described it as “hugely disappointing” that meat plants would attempt to undermine their own suppliers after a “year of unprecedented input cost increases”.

The EU and UK market for beef is solid, the ICMSA condends.

Suggesting these “cynical tactics” would fail, he said: “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.”

Refusing lower prices

The ICMSA livestock committee chair insisted that when it comes to the return to be got in beef markets, the “real numbers” will not change.

Morrison encouraged farmers to resist any attempt to make them accept lower prices in the coming weeks.

“The meat plants would be far better off forgetting about these transparent and tricky moves to boost supplies and just realising that the best way of ensuring seasonal supplies going forward is to pay the farmers to produce the beef,” he concluded.

Beef prices: factories try to tighten grip on trade

Factory efforts to pull beef prices ‘unwarranted’ - ICMSA

It is “hugely disappointing” that meat plants would attempt to undermine their own suppliers after a year of high input costs, says the ICMSA.