Pig farmer warns of more closures if crisis continues

A Cavan based pig farmer has warned that he could face closure in a matter of months unless pig feed and pork prices reach sustainable levels. Frank Brady took the Anglo-Celt around his medium size farm outside Tullyvin last week and explained how he could lose the lot in a matter of months unless action is taken. In a local economy already rocked by the ongoing Quinn crisis and the decimated construction sector, and ravaged by emigration and unemployment, a faltering pig industry - which employs between 1,500-2,000 in Cavan and Monaghan - could land a devastating blow. Worryingly the pig sector is languishing in crisis mode as farmers' profit margins continue to be crushed, rather than squeezed, by the cost of inputs and the modest price they can command for pork products. The typical cost of rearing pigs for the last eight months has exceeded the price attained from processors. Margins Frank proudly conducts a tour of the impressive complex in which he has invested heavily over the last three years. The borrowings he made to meet the stringent standards under regulations set to come into force at the end of 2013. Franks nods to the lane leading down to the Tullyvin-Bunnoe road as he explains how pig farmers are being hit financially. "Every business that comes up that lane has a margin and everthing that goes down it has a loss, and that's not sustainable in the long term. "The processor comes up - he has a margin. The miller comes up - he has a margin. The drug men that supply the vaccines, they have margins. The ESB gets paid. The workers coming up that lane, they all get paid. And everything that goes down that lane, which is primarily pigs, are losing money. At some stage we have to realise that we cannot keep going. "Per kilo of pig we are getting somewhere between €1.50-1.51/kg - it is less than cost price, and has been for the last eight months. Survive "We are falling into debt. Alot of us can only survive because we are on 'interest-only' repayments with the banks. For a lot of us our credit has gone up more with the miller, and we have used any cash we had left over. "I know one man this week who couldn't get feed for his pigs, only for another miller took him on with the help of another pig farmer - that's the only way he got his feed." The sense of injustice is compounded for pig farmers when they peruse some notable supermarket refrigerators, and seethe as they examine the labels and prices. Pork products claiming to be of Irish origin when the farmers insist the pigmeat was sourced externally and only packaged in Ireland is a particular source of anger. If their eyes happen to wander to the trays of lamb cutlets, they again wonder where it all went wrong. "Lamb at the minute is up on €6.50 to buy from the farmer," says Frank, insisting he doesn't begrudge sheep farmers who have suffered greatly in recent decades. "We're getting maybe €1.50 if we're lucky. Yet if you go into the supermarket to buy lamb chops or pork chops they are both much the same price. So questions have to be asked. Who's making that money?" Casualties Nationwide the prolonged crisis has already claimed a number of famers' livelihoods, with Rory O'Brien - a Cork farmer who was amongst the top five Irish producers - probably the most high profile casualty. O'Brien's closure may have made headlines, but according to Frank it is the smaller farmers who have suffered most over the last year. "When I started in this game a big pig farmer had 100 sows," recalled Frank, "now if you have 100 sows you're only a small farmer." Peak Frank can see that things are gradually improving when it comes to the cost of pig feed. "What has happened the last four or five days is that the grain prices has begun to come down," said Frank, speaking last Friday. "I think they have reached a peak and they are now beginning to realise in Europe, and Germany in particular, that to use good foods as bio fuels for electricity is not viable, and it's never going to be viable." Frank predicts that the supermarkets' drive to keep pork prices low, somewhat counter-intuitively, will ultimately cause the price to rise. By pricing farmers out of the business the supply of pigs is diminishing, which inevitably should push prices upwards. For the future of Frank Brady's farm it is imperative that profits reach a sustainable level soon or he will be added to the growing list of pig farming casualties. Even if things do, as expected pick up, Frank and his colleagues will still be counting the cost of 2010/2011 for a long time to come. "We can't keep going," warns Frank, "you're talking about months. Things are changing slowly, but they would want to change an awful lot quicker. But if they do change, we'll still be the next year and a half or two years paying off what we have lost."