Price cuts spark farmer's anger

The beef trade continues to disappoint this week with finishers finding themselves facing into price cuts rather than the expected rises.

Last week finishers in the middle and northern half of the country did deals at 302 and 288 for good R and O grades, with poorer R grades making 299c/kg .

In the South, where numbers continue to be more plentiful, 297c and 286c/kg were the more common deals being done for R and O grades.

With the UK market slipping, all factories pulled their quoted prices down 4-6c/kg this week, and did the old trick of saying that there could be more on the way.

However some agents left the price at last weeks levels, especially where they had started negotiating before the weekend.

Southern plants are trying to hold the line at 294c/kg for R grades and between 280 and 282c/kg for O grades. Some factories are even trying to re-impose a cut on heavy cattle over 400kg again.

The heifer trade has held up slightly better with up to 302c/kg still on offer for good R grade heifers.

AIBP Nenagh are especially keen for quality heifers, giving up to 308c/kg to secure the right articles. Farmers selling bulls managed to get 302-308c/kg for R and U grade young bulls this week.The cow trade was steady with up to 280c/kg still being offered in the Northwest for good R and U grading cows and 250c/kg still on offer for larger lots of O grading cows.

Anger sparked

The factory actions has sparked anger among winter finishers.

IFA National Livestock Committee Chairman John Bryan said he had not witnessed as much anger against the meat factories in the severe way they had blackguarded winter finishers this spring.

John said farmers believe the factories are managing and manipulating cattle numbers and prices at a time when prices are so much higher in the UK, our main market.

He said it is an even bigger scandal that some factories were importing cattle and telling their farmer clients that they must cut the price.

Cormac Healy of Meat Industry Ireland put the current difficult market situation down to a dramatic fall-off in exports to Russia, higher cow slaughterings in the UK (up 120%) and weakening prices on the Continent to name but a few.

The Russian market which has been an traditional outlet for forequarter beef only took 1,200 tonnes have this spring compared to 8,000 tonnes in the same period last year.

Brazil have dominated the Russian trade. They supplied 76,000 tonnes there in the first two months , a jump of 67% compared to last year.

Britain

The British beef price did give up some of the gains they had received in recent weeks.

After hitting 210pstg/kg (324c/kg incl VAT) for R3 grades some plants dropped quotes to 208pstg/kg (321c/kg incl VAT).

With factories buyers getting fat cattle in the live trade for less some are expecting that prices could fall further. Poor market demand is the reason given for their problems as well.

The factory trade is like chalk and cheese compared to the store trade (just like here). It continues to be on fire with 400kg bullocks selling for 150pstg/lkg liveweight or €880 a head.

Northern Ireland

The trade in Northern Ireland also fell back this week with factories cutting quotes by 2p/kg to leave U3 steers and heifers on 202 cp/kg.