ICSA Beef chair Edmund Graham has warned meat factories that their continued assault on beef prices is having a devastating effect at farm level and causing immense frustration amongst farmers. "The situation with beef prices has reached a tipping point. Producing beef only to get hammered by the processors and come out making a loss is completely unsustainable. Farmers are at their wits end," he said.

"The power the processors wield has never been more evident as they continue to offer prices that simply do not reflect the actual cost of production. There appears to be no acknowledgement whatsoever of the challenges beef farmers have faced over the last year with input costs rising left right and centre. It has never been more costly to produce beef and the lack of any recognition of that fact has created a tinderbox situation out there."

Mr Graham said factories must refrain from any further price cuts, "The recently published Teagasc National Farm Survey for 2022 shows just how little the average beef farmer is making. Teagasc themselves also put the basic cost of production at €6/kg, yet we are somehow being expected to take less than €5/kg. Adding insult to injury is the fact that factories had encouraged farmers to feed cattle for May and June. A tipping point has been reached; there is literally no more they can take from farmers and still expect them to produce."