Factories maintain cattle throughput

If the rest of the Irish suckler farmers are thinking the same way on dry heifers as the herdowners we surveyed this week then Irelands beef calf output is due to fall in the coming years by about 100,000 head. Couple this with the increased interest in live weanling exports and we are back to a situation where Enterprise Ireland's beef factory rationalisation programme is back on stream.

I detect an increased interest by Irish beef plants in keeping up throughputs. With skilled staff difficult to find there will be less readiness to go on short weeks.

This means that any tightening of supply has a greater potential to prize out a price increase than was the case over the past couple of years.

Over the past week or two weeks I have heard of sporadic special prices where a beef plant raided a load of cattle under a distant plant's nose. eg 94 p a lb flat paid in the South for heavy Friesian cattle by a plant in the East Midlands.

But generally factory prices are stable this week in the face of a slightly weaker dollar and sterling that has also shifted.

The Department reported factory steer prices for last week showed a small upward movement in prices compared to the previous week over U4, R3, R4 and R5, O3 and O4L. There was some small easing in U5, O4H and O5 and P4H.

I do not expect any great change when this weeks prices are reported. But with extra cattle expected to complete retention after March 1, factories are inclined to sight a bit tighter this week.

Last week Donegal made a move to drop some of the prices by a penny a lb. However, after talks with the IFA they reverted to the agreed price schedule.

Beef prices are under a little pressure in Northern Ireland and the UK but are still way higher than the Republic's prices when the exchange rate is counted.

Cows/heifers

Last weeks Irish beef factory throughput at 41,668 was 1000 head higher than the same week in 1999. This was on the basis of both the heifer and cow kill being up by almost 2000 head.

Heifer and Cow prices are suffering from the lack of an IFA/Beef plant arrangement. Farmers report heifers making anything from 82 p a lb for plain heifers in an export plant to 86/88 p a lb for the home market to 90/95 for the better continental heifer for export.

Cows too are very variable ranging from a top of 62 to 68p a lb. Irish exporters are reported to be meeting extra competition on cow beef going into Sweden.

AIBP is to open an office in Sweden to consolidate their trade.

North

Over the past few weeks a lot of cattle (beef and stores) travelled to the North. This especially put a stir under mart prices.

Recent days have seen less activity by Northern buyers in the marts but the live weanling shippers and Irish farmers are standing in strongly in their place.

A boat from Greenore, destined for the Lebanon, was filled with bullocks at £52 a cwt for Friesian bullocks, £54/£55 for coloured bullocks and anything from £52 to £60 a cwt for bulls depending on quality. Farmers in Australia are really in cover and are not getting the equivalent of 75p a kg liveweight for live cattle.