Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

There is a major problem with the market structure in farming at the moment in this State. There are three main elements to that market structure. There are farmers, then, typically, factories, and then there are supermarkets. What is happening across a number of product ranges is that the factories and the supermarkets are an oligopoly, which means that they have massive buyer-power and can force the prices and the terms and conditions out of the farmers. We saw it in the beef sector in which they pushed the price of beef below the cost of production for a large number of years, meaning that farmers were making a loss every time they sold a beast.

The same is happening now in pig production and in poultry production, especially in the production of eggs. In Cavan and Monaghan recently, farmers have had to go to supermarkets to protest about the prices they are getting for these products. Will the Government start the process of fixing the market structure in this sector and will it bring about or support the Aontú Bill to prevent the below cost-of-production sale of agricultural items in this country so that these two massively powerful elements of the agricultural sector, the factories and the supermarkets, are no longer allowed to abuse the power they have and to force farmers into poverty?

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