‘Food prices must remain at current levels or rise if farmers are to make a margin'
'The reality is if the farmer is not getting paid for what they are producing, they will not stay farming,' he said.
'Young people will not say this is a vocation when you have a mortgage and bills to be paid, and kids to be put through college – you have to make a margin.
'There are no vocations out there anymore – there are other options. If you don't have young people coming in, the industry dies.'
Drennan, a dairy farmer from Kilkenny, said the 50c/L currently being paid to dairy farmers is giving them a margin, but milk prices have fluctuated and will continue to do so.
'If the milk price was 34c/L, then there is no margin. Go back to 2023 when the milk price collapsed at the beginning of the year and by August, it was down to around 33c-34c/L,' he said.
'The reality of dairy farming in 2024 is that the average dairy farmer income was well below the minimum legal hourly wage.'
He said it 'should be easy for people to join the dots – if your electricity bill and fuel for your car has gone up, so have farmers' bills'.
If the price of food goes up 5-10pc, there is a national outcry, but if the price of Sky or Netflix goes up, it's OK
He said Eurostat figures show Ireland was paying 38pc of income on food in 1980 and now it's less than 9pc, and we are the lowest in Europe. Ireland is only one of two countries in the EU where less than 10pc of family income is spent on food, with the average spend 14.3pc.
'If the price of food goes up 5-10pc, there is a national outcry, but if the price of Sky or Netflix goes up, it's OK.'
The price of a weekly shop is rising at more than double the general rate of inflation, according to new figures from grocery data firm Kantar.
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Grocery prices were up 4.96pc by May 18, compared to the same 12-week period last year, according to the data. That's well over double the general rate of inflation, which the Central Statistics Office puts at 1.4pc in the year to the end of May.
Grocery prices are also rising twice as fast as they were in the same period last year, Kantar said.
Earlier CSO data in May showed the price of a pound of butter had risen by close to €1 over the past year to an average of €4.69, a surge of more than 26pc.
Recent figures from the CSO show that in the 12 months to March 2025, the Agricultural Output Price Index rose by 20.8pc.
The most significant output price increases in the 12 months to March 2025 were in cattle (+40.4pc), milk (+17.6pc) and sheep (+4.3pc), while decreases were recorded in potatoes (-9.3pc) and vegetables (-1.6pc).
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