The Irish Farmers' Association's (IFA) policy chief has called on Government to tackle the disconnect between Ireland’s food value chain and those seen in similar EU countries.

IFA director of policy and chief economist Tadhg Buckley stated that an almost 20-year food price stagnation in Ireland left the country “out of kilter with the rest of the EU” until food prices began to rise around two years ago.

“There was an awful lot of focus on food price inflation over the last two years, but in the 18 years preceding it, food prices did not increase at all in Ireland - 0.2% was all over 18 years,” Buckley told an association meeting in Cootehill, Co Cavan, on Monday.

“And it is not a surprise then that the sectors most reliant on the Irish market are the sectors which we see real, real pressure on.

“We saw this in poultry, pigs, horticulture and liquid milk, where you see a lot of farmers exiting these sectors and Ireland seems to be an outlier in this or has been up to now.

“The Government needs to look at fixing the food value chain. It is clearly broken when you look at food prices in Ireland relative to Europe.

“There is something wrong with that food value chain and that needs to be fixed.”

Output squeezed

Buckley stated that while margins have been under pressure in recent years from poor margins, farmgate output has also faced the threat of an increased regulatory burden.

He cited nitrates cuts, the removal of some pesticides from the market, the EU’s tightening of the industrial emissions directive and the EU Nature Restoration Law as being among the output-hitting regulations coming from Brussels.

“There has been an increase in regulation, which, in general, almost always reduces productivity,” the meeting heard.

“One of the things we have seen from the EU much more recently is that all their policies are generally structured to reduce output.

“When you reduce productivity and your costs stay the same, your costs per unit go up.”

Buckley added that any further tightening of the rules facing farmers needs a “proper impact assessment” to examine the move’s hit to farmer margins.

Read more

Ireland saw lowest food price rise in EU from 2012 to 2021