The IFA Sheep Chairman stated that sheep farmers are under extreme pressure and both the factories and the retailers have misread the situation and they have gone too far with their price cutting tactics. He called on farmers to resist any factory price below €4/kg which he said was only break even for lambs at this time of the year and that no lambs have been sold at under €4/kg so far. He also stated that he was very critical of factories for breaching the €4/kg in their quotes and accused some of them of trying to collapse the market. The current facts are the lamb kill is 70,000 head below this time last year with last weeks kill down 8,500 lambs on the same week in 2008.

---