Irish beef farmers are facing possible ruin as cheap German beef swamps markets and a slaughter backlog develops, the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) said today.
An estimated eight out of every nine Irish cattle are usually exported to international markets but the IFA said a glut of cheap German meat was hampering commercial beef sales at home and abroad.
"Germany is flooding the market with cheap beef - German meat is already appearing in Britain so we are losing our market there", IFA spokesman Derek Cunningham told reporters.
"German beef was being offered for as little as 75p a pound while Irish beef was being offered at 90p in a market where demand had already slumped amid concerns about mad cow disease", Mr Cunningham said.
"The big markets are closed to us because of the latest scare. We would normally slaughter 40,000 cattle a week for commercial markets but we are only slaughtering 20,000 at the moment", he said.
"Even that number could drop if German beef prices continue to undercut Ireland's and the beef farming industry could face heavy losses if prices dropped much further", he added.
"Around 80 pence a pound is break-even point for farmers - beyond that they are facing a loss", Mr Cunningham said.
Ireland's beef prices equal those offered under the European Union's voluntary purchase for destruction scheme, part of an EU effort to calm consumer panic and stop the slump in the beef trade due BSE.
But even that was unlikely to offer farmers much hope as a dearth of suitable processing plants was creating a backlog of cattle for slaughter, Mr Cunningham said.
"Some cattle are going to the purchase for destruction scheme, but not enough are going in because there isn't enough capacity", Mr Cunningham said.
Reuters