I farm: “A 1,300-sow, fully integrated pig unit with my father in Co Cork. Currently, I’m studying veterinary science in UCD but I help out at home whenever I can. All the family is involved in the business in one way or another.”

This week: “I’m just back after spending some time on placement in Denmark with a pig vet. In terms of scale and herd structure, they’re on a different level to us. The performance levels of the sows are huge and there are no integrated units.”

Performance: “You’re always driving to be more efficient or cost-effective. It’s a challenging but rewarding industry to be in. We recently set up an anaerobic digester to create more value from our pig slurry.”

Margins: “We work in margin over feed to determine the profitability of the business. Right now, pig prices are on the floor at €1.34/kg having dropped 6c in August. To make things worse, feed prices have increased and they make up 70% of all costs on the farm.”

Support: “In the next six months, you could see a lot of people having to exit unless we get more support. We need consumers to buy Irish and what we really need is a commitment from all retailers that they will stock Irish.”

Standards: “It’s a kick in the teeth when you perform to the highest standards and you see certain retailers import cheaper foreign product for the sake of a 1c margin. Not only has performance increased on Irish pig farms but welfare standards have too. It’s something we’re happy to increase but we’d like to see some of the benefit.”

Quotable quote: “I would definitely say that the pig industry is one of the most, if not the most, efficient industries here in Ireland.”

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Pig crisis: margins at their lowest in 15 years