The suckler and beef industry has experienced a period of renewed confidence over the last six to eight months. Weather conditions in the latter half of 2014 took some well-needed costs out of the system while also allowing farmers to replenish fodder supplies. After a very slow and worrying start to 2014, beef calf birth registrations increased and finished the year only marginally below 2013 levels.

As shown in Figure 1, beef calf birth registrations for the year to date are running ahead of 2014 levels, with farmers starting to close the gap again after the 2013 fodder crisis contributed to the calving interval jumping from 395 days in 2013 to 412 days in 2014.

In recent months, the upturn in the beef and live cattle trade has generated more optimism following a collapse in farmer-processor relationships.

Opportunities and threats

This is an opportune time to capitalise on the positive trends in the sector, but there are a number of factors at play in the background that could quickly dent new-found confidence.

Suckler breeding changes do not happen overnight. On the replacement heifer side, it can take farmers breeding their own replacements up to four years to see firsthand the results of changes to their breeding policy (nine months from sire selection to progeny on the ground, at least two years until calving down and another nine months before there is a calf on the ground).

Therefore, the importance of having confidence in breeding decisions cannot be stressed enough. ICBF analysis shows that despite advancements in breeding programmes, key drivers of profitability at farm level, namely calves per cow per year, calving interval and milk yield, which is a key driver of weight for age, continue to trend in the wrong direction.

A beef €uro-Star review group has been established to review current indices. The group has been tasked with assessing if the indices are relevant to target and deliver improvements in maternal traits and in doing so increase the productivity in the national suckler herd.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that the way in which the replacement index is represented by maternal cow and maternal progeny traits is being reviewed, with a view to possibly reverting to a single index or making changes that ensure breeders are not led into selecting sires that have a favourable replacement index, stemming primarily from strong terminal traits.

Reports indicate the review may also include a re-evaluation of the weighings of the replacement index, listed on page 4, with greater emphasis placed on maternal traits.

Industry meetings are also planned in April. The group is due to report back in May with recommendations to the board of the ICBF. It is crucial that the required changes are implemented to give farmers confidence in the breeding decisions they are making.

On page four of this supplement, Pat Donnellan of the ICBF lists the top 50 bulls in the spring 2015 active beef bull list. All animals in the list have high reliability figures, which give more confidence in making breeding decisions. Pat also gives advice for making informed breeding decisions on page 5.

Farmer uptake

While the ICBF can provide the platform for decisions, there also needs to be an acceptance at commercial and pedigree level that changes to suckler breeding programmes need to happen. As Alan Kelly details on pages six and seven, milk yield has been depleted in a large percentage of the current suckler cow population, with very few sires available that can have a significant impact on increasing cow milk yield from a low base. Market signals have led many breeders down the route of terminal breeding, but pedigree breeders and breed societies need to be proactive in ensuring they offer a source of maternal as well as terminal sires.

A number of breed societies are concentrating on identifying breed lines that suit the dairy herd in terms of calving ease and gestation length in a bid to entice dairy farmers to use these sires, which in turn will deliver increased numbers of replacement heifers with a guaranteed milk supply. The new Dawn/Teagasc demo herd in Athenry seems like an obvious ready-made fit to evaluate how dairy-bred cows perform from different sires and strengthen performance analysis coming from dairy-bred progeny in the Grange maternal herd.

Policy decisions

The full implications of the introduction of the Basic Payment Scheme are starting to hit home, with farmers seeing the true impact in correspondence received this spring. There is no doubt that cuts to payments will put pressure on suckler cow numbers in the absence of a future coupled payment. This is likely to hit hardest on farms operating intensively. A move that could put as much pressure on suckler farmers, typically farming on more marginal land, is the ending of REPS and its replacement by GLAS, which deters productive farming. The two revenue-generating options are traditional hay meadows and low-input permanent pasture, both of which have implications and would greatly restrict production, especially on small-scale or average-sized suckler farms.

The introduction of the Beef Genomics Scheme would deliver an injection of confidence ahead of the breeding season. There have been murmurs of an area-based payment equivalent to a €100 cow payment on the first 10 cows in the herd, with payments thereafter rumoured to be from €80 to €95 per cow. Getting the scheme over the line, and ensuring payments are not delayed in 2015, must continue to be a priority of Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney. In the long term, an announcement on the replacement of the Beef Technology Adoption Programme, or BTAP, would also help.

Clear market signals

There is no doubt that one of the greatest factors to suck confidence out of suckler and beef enterprises in the last five years was last year’s beef crisis. It will take a lot of work and time to repair farmer-processor relationships, with optimism generated by Food Harvest 2020 well and truly exhausted.

Current beef prices, generated by strong market demand, along with a temporary reprieve on weight and age specifications have settled issues raised last year. However, as demonstrated by the long generation interval in breeding replacements, farmers need longer-term direction and clear market signals beyond the one-year reprieve. For example, there are some processors actively sourcing supplies for later in the summer and giving feeders encouragement to feed bulls to heavier weights. The question is what will happen in the long term when cattle supplies recover or pressure comes on the market.

The pressure has relaxed on the beef forum, but getting clear market signals out to farmers must remain a priority. The decisions farmers make this spring can have an influence at farm level for two years down the line.