While beef suckler farmers are getting better prices for their animals around the mart ring recently, the healthy profits are indicative of an unhealthy change from the small Irish farm to "factory farm" methods.
That's the opinion of Adam Wood, the beef editor of the Irish Farmers Journal who farms in Cavan. He was invited on to the Joe Finnegan Show this morning to discuss changes in the sector. Mr Woods pointed to the fact that on this week five years ago, Irish beef farmers were protesting outside factories over the poor prices paid for their product. He said since then, factories have reduced the number of farms they deal with to ensure that should such disruption happen again, they would be guaranteed their supply. The result is that today, only 160 herds in the country account for one quarter of the national kill.
"The sector is moving away from the small finisher," Mr Woods said: "As a result of those protests, factories really doubled down on their supply chain and said we need to be dealing with less farmers here and there's now just 160 herds now in the country finishing one quarter of the national kill," Adam Woods said, "So, they're huge farms and they're around the ring at the moment so, as I said, the industry is changing; it's going away from the small farmer and small finisher into that very, very large finisher and I'm not sure that's a good thing for our industry because Ireland always portrays a picture of a small farm, a family farm and we've actually been travelling in the opposite direction for the past number of years."
