Widening Gap on Plant Protection Product Prices Not Justified – Mccarthy

IFA Inputs Project Team chairman James McCarthy said that once again this year’s IFA price survey of plant protection products shows an enormous gap between keenest quotes and harvest credit prices for several products.

Mr McCarthy said, “The widening gap on plant protection prices is not justified given the extremely low prices currently on offer for 2014 harvest. The survey shows the importance of shopping around as this coupled with collective purchasing can deliver significant savings particularly at a time when Irish tillage farmers’ incomes are under enormous pressure. There is no justification for the significant price differences which sometimes can exceed 30% / 40%. Some of the major chemical companies successfully use market segmentation to limit price competition on particular products but this is short sighted given the wafer thin margins that many growers are working off.”