“We are losing €55 on every pig we sell”
Pig farmers from around the country staged an all-day protest outside Hilton Foods in Drogheda yesterday as part of a campaign by the IFA Pigs Committee for price increases to at least €2 per kilo.
IFA Pig Chairman Roy Gallie said farmers are at breaking point. “It’s now or never” he told Drogheda Life. “We are losing €55 on every pig we sell and this has been the case for far too long.
“We need the pig farmers to survive to fill the supermarket shelves,” he said.
The protest started at 6.00 am and Mr Gallie said they would stay for as long as it takes to get a dialogue started about a realistic price for their pigs because they were facing bankruptcy selling their produce at a loss.
The thirty or so farmers blockaded the gateway to the Hilton Foods plant and trucks could not get in or out.
The Hilton Foods protest is the latest in a series of such actions at “secondary processing plants around the country – similar protests have been held at Oliver Carty & Family in Athlone, Co Roscommon; Pilgrim’s site in Shillelagh, Co Wicklow; Oakpark Foods in Cahir, Co Tipperary; and Connolly Meats in Co Monaghan.
Mr Gallie said that IFA members had met with management at Hilton Foods but there had been had been no dialogue with retailers.
