Mr. Tim Cullinan:

It is a very relevant question. Teagasc has done a nexus analysis of where the sector is now. Farmers are losing anything between €35 to €40 per pig currently, and that put in the context of a 500 to 600 sow unit means it is in the region of €50,000 per month. There are multiple reasons why it happens. There are pressures from the input side and on the back of Covid-19, there is the matter of transporting Irish pork, much of which is exported to China. We have an excellent export market but the cost of transporting that pork increases because of factors such a lack of availability of containers and the increasing price of energy. It has put substantial pressure on the market. The import of grain into the country has been substantially affected by the cost of shipping.

The practices we see retailers using when it comes to fresh produce, whether it is meat or vegetables, continues to drive down the price. We employed Mr. Jim Power in 2019 to look in particular at the retail beef sector, as that was struggling at the time. I will quote a paragraph from the report at the time, as it is relevant to this evening's discussion. It states:

The growing market share of the discounters, such as Aldi and Lidl, has fundamentally altered the retail grocery landscape and retail food prices. The market share of Aldi and Lidl has expanded from 9.5% in October 2010 to 24.5% in November 2019. This is not unique to Ireland. The growth of discounters is altering the pricing behaviour of the rest of the retail grocery sector.

What has happened over the past number of years is that as discounters have moved into Ireland, there is what we might call a habit of using food as a loss leader. That is fundamental to the problem we are experiencing this evening.