Lamb trade steadies

By Peter Young

The lamb trade held steady earlier in the week with farmers getting up to 342c/kg (122). For today (Thursday) Kepak Hacketstown and Dawn Ballyhaunis held their quotes at 325c/kg plus bonuses but the ICM plans dropped to a base quote of 319c/kg. Kepak Athleague who didn't give a quote are believed to have followed suit.

The exception was Moyvalley who increased their base quote to 330c/kg, although they did say they were being more selective in their buying.

In general the pressure seems to be downward on sheep quotes. The demand from ethnic festivals has gone and English lambs appear to have the edge in France. Saying that Irish lambs remained at 372 to 377c/kg in Rungis this week.

UK

In the UK the live lamb price is hovering just under £1/kg (336c/kg incl VAT) but the factory price of 210p/kg (328c/kg). The recent figures released by DEFRA show the decline in the UK sheep flock continues. The breeding flock fell 800,00 to 17,268,000. That's down 4.5% on the previous year and coincides with a 15% increase in cull ewe slaughterings in the first five months. Despite this fact UK lamb throughput was up 3% (130,000) to the end of May compared with 2004 and they also recorded more lambs still on the ground.

Ewes

The weekly ewe kill continues to be well up on last year. Factories report more ewes coming out. In particular they are seeing more mountain ewes. Base quotes have slipped back to 112c/kg (40) although up to 126c/kg (45) is being paid for good quality lots.

The outlook for light lambs is still no better. It could be a few weeks before Portugal and Spain put orders in. Farmers looking to sell might get better prices in the marts where the store trade has picked up in the last few weeks. Stores are making between €10 to €22 a head with blackface lambs down to €1 to €5 over their weight. Factories are avoid killing light lambs and cutting underfleshed ones as much as 45c/kg, down to 280c/kg.

Heavy lambs

While factories are having problems with underfleshed lambs the upward limit on weight continue to be pushed higher. Some farmers are getting paid up to 22.5 to 23kg while at the same time others are only getting paid up to 22kg.

ICSA sheep vice chairman Mervyn Sunderland, is urging farmers to negotiate on lamb weights at the factory gate. The difference can be between 50 and 100 kilos free per 100 lambs sent for slaughter.

"It's unbelievable that factories are pushing back the weights and effectively demanding free meat from farmers. We doubt very much if these savings are being passed on to the consumer.''

He said it was just another way of squeezing more profit from an already beleaguered industry.