Meat should cost more

One of the more unsustainable features of modern western lifestyles is meat consumption, which has soared on the back of extremely low prices for meat.

Supermarket power and consumer “choice” have combined to force meat prices to a point below the cost of production for some time, a situation that could only continue in the relative short term thanks to comparatively low prices for oil and animal feeds.

Farmers have pointed out for some time that western consumers must pay more for meat - and other primary produce - but have generally been ignored with the result that many farmers either leave the land or turn it to more profitable use.

But as I’ve written before, the tipping point is fast approaching thanks to rising oil prices, the diversion of grain crops to biofuel production and crop shortages due to drought, flood and poor weather.

Our own experience has been that barley prices have almost tripled in three years and fuel prices are up by a third, while customers for pigs continue to expect to pay the same prices for weaner and grower animals as in the 1980s.

There is also a widespread failure of people to accept that a premium must be paid for quality pork and quality animals.

We realise that a good boar will set us back £250-300 while a top-notch boar with proven success as a sire, in the show ring and on the meat hook (by siring porkers than win carcass and meat competitions) will cost in excess of £400-500.

We also accept that an unproven gilt from good lines will cost upwards of £100-150, while proven sows from good lines go for £300 and up.

But we find that with a handful of exceptions, prospective buyers only want to pay £30-35 for a birth notified weaner (and in some cases less) and £40-50 for a pedigree one.

That’s not only unsustainable in terms of the cost of the sire and dam, but also in terms of the investment in feed, bedding, housing, fencing, equipment, vet’s bills, insurance, transport, birth notification, paperwork and the like.

As we’re not a business I don’t include labour cost as our aim is to provide our own pork and preservce a rare breed while generating cash to cover the other overheads.

We’re currently paying £232 a tonne for sow rolls and £159 a tonne for rolled barley. That means a 10-week old weaner has cost us 19.55 pence a day to feed to that age. (Actually, it’s slightly different as we grow and feed vegetable crops as well, but this is a good illustration.)

On top of that, an in-pig sow consumes at least three kilograms of food a day and that continues while she’s feeding her piglets. That works out at 58.65 pence a day.

In all, a litter of 10 weaners at 10 weeks old has already cost us £18.89 per piglet in feed alone. Straw for bedding is another £6 per piglet.

We aim to see the sow pay for herself within four farrowings at an average of eight piglets per litter, which means a £300 sow adds £9.38 per piglet.

Putting those together works out at £34.27 a piglet - before we’ve factored in the other costs and just 73 pence less than the supposed top price for a 10-week old weaner.

Try explaining this to a typical buyer and they simply block it out. They want a quality 10-week-old weaner for £30-35 - end of story. (Some only want to pay £20-25 a weaner!)

That’s why we state our prices and won’t be haggled down, much to the fury of some people.

It’s the same with the animals we take to pork weight ourselves. We have a small band of dedicated supporters who are happy to pay the price of our pork, but many more “potential” customers want to pay supermarket prices or less.

They’re not concerned that those prices are neither justified nor sustainable. They want quality pork, they want it cheap and they don’t care who they exploit to get it so long as they don’t have to face reality.

But a shock appears to be looming for the consumer, as even the media are starting to become aware.

The BBC has today reported on a study by Deloitte, the global financial advice, taxation, auditing and consultation business.

Deloitte’s study found that grain prices had doubled for farmers, while surging demand for biofuels combined floods in some parts of the world and drought in others had led to greatly reduced availability of cereals.

Wheat prices have hit record prices globally, corn prices hit a 10-year high back in January, global grain stockpiles are at their lowest levels in more than 20 years and demand from countries like India has soared.

That all means tremendous upward pressure on prices that will have to feed through to the end users of those cereals, whether they’re used to make bread, feed animals or turn into fuel.

Of course, the BBC along with the rest of the media says that farmers will benefit from the price rises - but that’s not necessarily true for all farmers.

Most farmers that supply food processors and supermarkets are on fixed price contracts that are decided in advance, so they won’t benefit from soaring prices. I know several farmers around our way whose barley will go for less than £100 tonne only to see it sold on for prices well over £135-140 a tonne.

The real beneficiaries of the price rises will be the middlemen and the supermarkets.

They may find, for example, that while they only have three-quarters of the produce they expected from “their” farmers and have to pay more for the extra amount they need, they can spread that extra cost over the entire amount while passing on the rise plus a bit more to consumers.

Best of all, the simple-minded media will report it as farmers reaping the benefits of higher prices, which means consumers won’t turn on the retailers but will blame “greedy” farmers yet again.

What’s really needed is a hefty injection of reality.

Meat is underpriced at present - both in historic terms and when compared with the cost of its inputs, which are soaring.

The buyer of livestock and the consumer of meat both need to face those facts, and start to accept that they not only need to pay more but that they also need to consume less.

As with so many other aspects of the modern, western consumer society, anything less is not sustainable. Reality will intrude at some point and the sooner people remove their blinkers, the less shocking the impact with reality will be.