Beef farmers urged to 'box clever' amid factory price cuts
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) Livestock chair has slammed a move by factories to cut beef prices by 10c/kg this week.
Michael O'Connell said this latest price cut was "rubbing salt into the wound" of the farmers who had seen "€300-€400 per head wiped off the price of their cattle, excluding feeding costs".
He said that spring 2026 had been "one to forget" for beef finishers.
Beef
O'Connell said that factories had pulled prices by 10c/kg "at the first hint of uncertainty in the trade".
"Why does this 'uncertainty’ have to be passed back to the farmer-producers in the form of a price cut? And what uncertainty are they talking about?
"The only certainty we know of is the fact that beef is scarce globally and food security was never as important," he said.
The ICMSA Livestock chair said that the record prices recorded in 2025 were needed to "buffer the preceding below-average years".
"Factories were never going to let this become an annual occurrence and really 'turned the screw' on farmers this year.
"Farmers’ biggest fear now is that very expensive store cattle will be processed between now and the end of the summer at a significant loss.
"As usual, factories have decided on a tactic of citing some unproveable factor and then introducing a farcical price cut," he said.
"The narrative that markets are difficult – specifically, the UK market - is deflecting the fact that our beef processors have depended on the UK as first stop for our product for decades.
"The commentary regarding market difficulties is nothing new but shouldn’t processors have seen this coming since Brexit and source markets outside of the EU? Or, better still, inside the EU to replace the once lucrative UK market?" O'Connell added.
ICMSA
The ICMSA Livestock chair believes factories have "a purse of profits in reserve" from which they could easily pay farmers.
"We are well over €1/kg down on base price today from where beef peaked in 2025. How are farmers supposed to survive after restocking in 2025 at prices €1/kg more than they are being offered now?
"Whatever benefit accrued to farmers last year is being lost this year, so we are back to square one and the factories know it well," he said.
O'Connell claimed that "most factories are reduced to three to four days per week, suggesting that they are trying to stretch out a limited availability of slaughter-fit cattle".
"I would urge farmers to 'box clever' for as long as they can and sensibly consider their options before giving in to factories.
"We don’t believe the cattle are there; the figures have showed reductions of available cattle for the past three years but going forward. Don’t be panicked and look at all options, including the marts," he said.
