This week abattoirs have again held the price of clean beef at £3.80/kg for R grade carcases.

The official AHDB price lifted by 1p to £3.83/kg for an R4L steer in Scotland for the week ending 20 June. This gives Scotland a 13p/kg premium over same-grade northern English cattle and 20p/kg over cattle in the south of the country.

ADHB also reports that R4L grading heifers rose by 1p to £3.83/kg, with same-grade young bulls falling by 1p to £3.72/kg. Cows grading O-4L fell by 2p to £2.80/kg. Fleshier cows are getting £3.05/kg.

The number of store cattle sold through the live ring was 826, which is down 2,231 head on the week.

The national average was £914/head, up £72 on the previous week.

Over 7,199 new-season lambs were sold through the prime ring, a rise of 1,502 in Scotland with an average price of £2.20/kg recorded, down 2p/kg on the week. Meanwhile, the UK average price published by ADHB was £4.68/kg deadweight for R grade new-season lambs, down 24p/kg for the week.

The live ring also recorded 4,214 ewes sold last week, down by 995 on the previous week. The average price paid rose £1.75/head to £71.49/head.

Meanwhile, the Food and Agricultural Organisations of the UN estimates global sheepmeat production will rise a modest 1% to 16m tonnes this year. Most of the increase is expected to be in China.

In contrast, production down under, which dominates global trade, is forecast to drop driven by limited supplies and the breaking of the drought leading to restocking demand. This is expected to see global trade volumes to decline.

Import demand from China is likely to remain strong but not increase, high volumes are still in storage which will limit growth, and China is also expected to expand its own production.