After Ireland, Poland is the biggest net exporter of beef in the EU and therefore always of interest. They have a completely different system with even smaller farms and in many ways working to a farming system familiar to Ireland 50 years ago.

They don’t have a significant suckler beef industry. It is a bull beef-based system from the dairy industry. It is also a predominantly housed system with very little pasture. Farmers grow grain and hay or silage to feed in sheds.

Some larger farms have good facilities but it is still common practice that steers are tethered in buildings similar to old-style Irish byres.

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What is significant is the growth in output from the industry in Poland. It is increasingly moving away from exporting live calves to rearing and finishing them and exporting beef instead. ABP now has three factories in Poland and will have brought a huge global customer portfolio with them, contributing to this growth. Production has surged from 413,000t in 2014 to 501,000t last year, an increase of 18%, according to Eurostat.

The main volume export markets for Poland are Italy on 73,000t in 2016, which is 22% of all Polish beef exports. This is followed by Germany on 48,000t, which is 15% of Polish exports, while the UK remains a small but growing market, taking 15,000t of Polish beef in 2016, or 5% of Polish exports.

The higher-value cuts are mainly sold in these western European markets, while lower value parts of the carcase are sold in central and eastern Europe plus Middle Eastern markets.

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Full coverage: farming in Poland