Mr. Cormac Healy:

We will check the current average price for the Deputy. To clarify one point, Irish pig prices in the past 12 months have been 10% ahead of the EU average and, as Mr. Carroll said, 15% ahead of the prices paid in the eight countries that account for most pig meat production. Our prices have been ahead in that context. Even in the last three to four weeks, prices have jumped. We saw a dramatic jump in the German price, which had been at €1.20 per kilogram for many months. I can tell Deputy Carthy now that the average EU price is between €1.85 per kilogram to €1.87 per kilogram. Today, we are at €1.70 per kilogram. During the past 12 months, and especially since September, when feed prices were already beginning to rise, the reality has been that pig producers have been going into a loss-making situation. Throughout that period, our price has been stronger than prices in all of Europe. There has been a jump in the price in the past three to four weeks, and our price has gone up as well. The Deputy asked if we see more happening in this regard. The expectation is that all markets will have to respond to this situation and reflect the level of input cost increases, but this is not happening at the rate we would like it to. Even in those member states where the price has jumped in recent weeks, I do not know if that is sustainable. There has been a response, however.

Returning to the Chair’s initial question concerning the markets, and perhaps we do not need to rehearse everything that has been said already, it was mentioned earlier during the discussion with the representatives of the IFA that prices were at a high globally in 2019 and into 2020. Since then, they have been in a downward spiral globally, across the rest of the EU and here. Two major factors have been driving this trend. The first was the outbreak of ASF in Germany. That had a cascade effect because the country was banned from exporting to many international markets. Consequently, German-produced pig meat was largely confined to the European market. This occurred at a time when production had also increased in response to the higher price being paid in the previous 12 to 18 months. The second major factor was China becoming a disturbed and volatile market in the past two years. Prices paid in China in March were 50% of the level they were at a year ago. There has been a great deal of disruption in that country and that has largely led to the global fall in prices in the past 12 to 18 months.

Moving on to diversification, we are examining this aspect. There was a loss of market in the UK, which was connected to Brexit, as well as to ASF, because cheaper continental product was going into the UK market. We have probably maintained or even slightly increased our position in the EU market, while there has been significant diversification in exporting product into international markets, particularly Asian markets. China is the main market there, but we also export product to Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and the US. Those are the large international markets we target.

The new markets we are working on and seeking access to include Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar, even though that is probably very challenging now. Other new markets we have been working on include Mexico, which is one of the biggest pig-producing and pig-importing countries in the world. Its market is largely dominated by imports of US pork products, but we have got access to the Mexican market. The first consignments of our product only went there in recent months. It is a new market, but one we hope we will see expanding.