As demand for lamb increases ahead of Easter, sheep farmers are seeking increased payments for their animals.
Prices for sheep meat remain below 2022 levels, even though production costs increased hugely in the last 12 months.
John McHale farms a flock of sheep on his land in Foxford, Co Mayo.
Like many others, he has been hit with very high input prices in the last year, while the payments he has been getting for his sheep have been falling and are well below prices obtained last year.
"Prices have increased tremendously and at the same time the return from the finished product has being falling. If that's to continue sheep farming will be unsustainable.
"It’s recovered a little bit in the last two weeks, but before that it was lower and lower every week, five to ten cent a kilo, particularly back in the first few week of January. The shock that sheep farmers got every Monday morning with the prices falling," Mr McHale said.
Ironically, the low prices come at a time when demand from processors is very strong compared to last year according to Joe Burke, Meat and Livestock Senior Manager with Bord Bia. However international factors are affecting price.
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"Since the latter half of 2022, there has been a noticeable increase in availability of both British lamb and southern-hemisphere product within key European markets.
"In the case of New Zealand and Australia this trend is partly attributable to a slowdown in the Chinese demand for sheep meat, causing the redirection to the EU and UK," Mr Burke said.
He said that both Easter and the Muslim festival of Ramadan have helped boost prices a little, but not to the point they were at last year.
"Prices rose fourteen cent per kilo in the week to 26 March, but the trade remains significantly behind the €7.05 paid during the corresponding week last year."
Mr Burke said inflation is also impacting demand for lamb in the domestic and export markets with reduced demand in particular reported for premium cuts.
The poor prices for sheep meat have already led to farmers protests, public meetings and demonstrations at Leinster House in Dublin.
There has also been an acknowledgement from Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue that farmers are under pressure.
In an answer to a recent Dáil question, the minister said supports are available in the form of the Sheep Improvement Scheme and through other domestic Common Agriculture Policy measures. But there may be more to come.
"I have now asked officials in my department to examine what potential supports, if any, could be put in place to support our sheep farmers in light of the recent challenge," Mr McConalogue said.
He added however that such supports would require diversion of funds from other areas.
Meanwhile, John McHale said prices just have to rise, but efforts should also continue to encourage demand.
"We need to develop our own market and promote our own lamb. This is Easter week, this is a lovely time to have a bit of our own locally produced food.
"Lamb is nearly always produced very close to where it is consumed. You couldn't get anything with less carbon miles and this is always a traditional time of year for a bit of lamb."
