The typical price paid to farmers across Scotland for an R4L continental steer is £3.73/kg which has not moved for a number of weeks.

Scottish abattoirs are paying R grade lambs around £4.20/kg to £4.40/kg. This has remained steady as the live market price comes under pressure.

The official Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) steer price was £3.87/kg for an R4L for the week ending 24 October, which is another fall of 1p/kg.

Scotland currently enjoys a premium of around 12p/kg over Northern England and 26p/kg more than the south of England.

Scottish heifers grading R4L were quoted at £3.85/kg, which is down 1p/kg. Same-grade bulls were £3.69/kg, which is down 2p/kg. Cows grading O-4L remain at £2.65/kg which is the same price for the third week running.

The number of store cattle rose by nearly 800 to 7,868 animals, with an average price of £833/head, back £66/head.

Many cattle are now being housed in Scotland as grass growth falls sharply. The national average grass growth for the 2020 season was 8.6t DM/ha which is a fall of 24% on 2019.

Sheep

Medium weight prime lambs in the live ring slipped 3p/kg to £1.94/kg. Heavier lambs fell significantly by 16p/kg to £1.86/kg. The number of new-season lambs sold through the ring fell over 4,000 to 18,354.

The official AHDB lamb price for last week rose 1p/kg to £4.43/kg for an R grade.

The number of live ewes sold in the live ring was 8538 which is the lowest numbers since the start of August. The average price was £58.23/head, which is down only 12p/head.

Store lamb sales jumped up by over 16% on the week as 15449 were sold in the ring. The average liveweight price rose by £2.80 to £61,72/head.

From January to August this year, exports were down 8% when compared to the same period in 2019, totalling 57,700t according to the latest data from HMRC. While export volumes have recovered in recent months, the latest data suggests UK export markets may be coming under pressure again.

In the year to August, total imports were down 12% 6,500t to 47,200t. Earlier in the year shipments from Ireland and New Zealand were significantly down which explains much of the fall. However shipments from NZ have since risen but Ireland remains falling.