EU agricultural output decreased in value by 2.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the first three months of 2025. It follows an ongoing trend of output value reduction over the past 12 months. Leading the value decline were milk, grain, and beef prices, all suffering high double-digit percentage price reductions. Meanwhile, consumer food prices have not shown the same decline. In Ireland, the average consumer price for a kilogramme of sirloin steak reached €21.82 in April 2026, well ahead of the €19.48 per kilogramme of April 2025. While the price of fresh milk in shops has fallen in the same period, it has not reduced in price by anything resembling the drastic reductions suffered by primary milk producers at the farmgate. Yet again, food producers can legitimately complain that the statistics rarely come out in their favour when retail food prices – falling, rising or static – are compared to the prices they receive for their produce leaving the farm. Consumers are buying less beef, paying more for what they are buying, and ending up with the same spend, but with less product to put on the barbecue or in the oven. Meanwhile, beef finishers are in disbelief at the losses they are enduring on cattle bought in last year and sold in recent months. Our beef production may be environmentally sustainable, but its economic sustainability is in question. No one can quite figure out what has gone wrong. Cold stores are full of beef, the processors say; market returns do not justify higher prices, they add; and ultimately, it appears to be the producer who takes most of the pain. Never, in recent memory at least, have we had a situation where global, European and Irish declines in beef production and output have resulted in a major fall in producer prices. Go figure!
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