IFA President Padraig Walshe said: “This retail price war is already impacting negatively on farm incomes, and unless the Government takes immediate action to address this issue and improve our competitiveness, it will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs in the Irish food processing sector. The supermarket bosses would have consumers believe that the reductions are coming from the supermarkets own bottom line. They’re fooling nobody. The reality is that it’s off the backs of Irish farmers and Irish jobs.”

He added: “supermarkets such as Supervalu talk about supporting Irish produce and jobs. Yet the price paid to our lamb producers has fallen by over 20% in the last month, leaving them with no income and our lamb processors lay the blame at the doorstep of the retail multiples. Supervalu boasts about ‘real food, real people’ but they must start caring about the real people who produce the food. Dunnes Stores say ‘the difference is we’re Irish’. Yet many of their food products are sourced outside the Republic. Across other farming enterprises – beef, pigs, poultry, dairy, horticulture – there is huge pressure on incomes as a result of the supermarket war between Tesco, Dunnes and Supervalu in their race to the bottom on food prices.”

The IFA President criticised the lack of Government intervention and said it was time to shut down the National Consumer Agency (NCA), which he said takes an all too simplistic view of retail price wars that are geared only at delivering more profits for supermarkets and undermining thousands of jobs in our economy.

Mr. Walshe said: “The NCA is encouraging and applauding the pillaging of Irish jobs and farm incomes by the retail multiples. They make no mention or allowance for quality, economic activity or employment. Neither is there any recognition of the devastating social consequences of profiteering by the retailers on jobs and communities.”

“This morning another Government agency - The Competition Authority - is assisting this misguided assessment in their failure to recognise the implications of what the supermarkets are doing, and their ignorance of the realities of the high animal welfare, environmental and other costly standards Irish farmers have to bear,” he added.

The IFA pointed out that the NCA has listed high energy costs, rates and waste and water charges as huge anti-competitive drivers in our economy. They then noted that all of these costs can be controlled by the Government, yet nothing is done to deal with them.

They warned that consumers as taxpayers will have to "pick up the tab" as they will have to pay higher taxes to fund those thousands of extra families on the dole as a result of the unfair distribution of the profits in the food supply chain.

Mr. Walshe said the Government has to confront the retail sector and the multi-million euro profits made by them. “We must have a retail Code of Practice and a supermarket Ombudsman. The Code must include a ban on below-cost selling of food and ensure there is equity and transparency in the share out of the consumer price."

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