Commenting on the CSO Agricultural Price Indices for October, published last week, the President of ICMSA, Pat McCormack said that it’s clear that the time for action from our politicians at national and EU level has come and immediate measures must be put in place to address the unprecedented increases in input costs.
Mr. McCormack said that the output price index increasing by 14.1 per cent from October 2020 to October 2021 would normally be a good news story, but the input price index increase of 15.7 per cent had actually ensured that farmers were worse off.
He added that the prices were already in the pipeline and described as “astronomic” some of the increases with some fertiliser prices up 64.5 per cent, energy prices up 29.7 per cent and feed prices up to 18.5 per cent.
Mr. McCormack said that ICMSA believes that the actual increases in prices could well be higher than even these figures.
“It’s very obvious that these input price hikes are unsustainable and will require the immediate attention of our national and EU politicians,” he said.
“They need to examine the options available either to immediately decrease input prices to realistic levels, raise output prices to compensate for input cost increases, or else provide support through direct support or the taxation system”.
The ICMSA President said it was already looking like 2022 will be defined by soaring input prices and policymakers at national and EU will have to simply step up with measures to address the issue.
