This article is from page 4 of the 2007-10-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
CLARE is on the brink of bread shortages this winter with skyrock- eting overheads threatening to put many bakeries out of business.
The price of wheat and flour in Ire- land increased by 70 per cent in the 12 months from September 2006 to September 2007, with a further 30 per cent increase reported over the last six weeks alone.
“We have already seen a number of bakeries close over the past few years because of cost pressures. Considering this recent spate of cost
increases, I would not be surprised to see more casualties, as businesses can’t continue to absorb these kinds of cost increases,’ said Paul Kelly, of the Irish Bread Bakers Association. “The bakery sector is of significant importance to the Irish economy, employing over 4,000 individuals throughout the country. The cost of doing business in today’s market is becoming increasingly difficult.” These unprecedented increases are as aresult of a combination of factors all connected with global warming. European grain crops were deci- mated this year as a result of drought
in the south and too much rain in the north. Fear of global warming has also cause hundreds of thousands of farmers worldwide to abandon tradi- tional crops in favour of bio-fuels.
“It’s cheaper to burn the grain as fuel than it is to change it into food. The Americans have set targets on bio-fuel and it is unlikely that they will back down on them,” said Sea- mus Murphy, head of the IFA in Ee
“If you look back a few years, we had grain mountain in Europe. The EU changed their policy and all of these stores disappeared and that is
what’s driving the cost increases.
‘The reaction from farmers will be to produce more grain, so hopefully over the next few years grain sup- plies will come back a bit.
“This is providing that there is no major incident in a grain producing ote as
“Whatever about the chance of a grain shortage, from a farming point of view the pig, chicken and beef farmers cannot take this rise in the cost of grain; especially the pig farm- ers, they have been loosing money on every pig they have sold after the last few months.”