The mart trade has seen another steady week’s trading. While there are a lot of red arrows on this week’s Martbids analysis table, the changes in a lot of the categories are very small.

Marts have seen a huge increase in numbers over the last week, with some very big sales reported in the west in particular.

Cull cows are also starting to move out in numbers and a huge gap has opened up between good-quality fleshed cows and parlour cows. Some of these cows are being bought at less than 80c/kg this week.

Taking a look at this week’s Martbids analysis table, we see that bullocks continue to come close to €3/kg across the top-end quality categories.

Top-end bullocks in the 400kg to 500kg weight category came in at €2.98/kg this week.

It was a similar story in the heifer rings, with top-end heifers in the 500kg to 600kg weight bracket coming in at €2.94/kg this week.

Top-end weanling bulls in the 300kg to 400kg weight bracket came in at €3.65/kg this week, back 11c/kg on the previous week’s trading.

Top-quality weanling heifers sold for €3.40/kg this week, back 7c/kg on last week.

There appears to be more customers coming out for the lighter weanling, with 200kg to 300kg weanling bulls in the top-quality category hitting €3.69/kg this week.

Live exports in 2023 are up 20% when compared with the same period in 2022.

The stand-out performer has been weanlings, with 6,063 extra weanlings exported so far in 2023. This is up almost 40% on the 2022 figure.

Turkey and Italy have seen a big increase in Irish cattle imports.

The store export trade is the only negative on the export side, with 3,530 fewer store cattle exported so far in 2023, down 16% on 2022.

Calf exports have seen a very strong year’s trading, with 203,293 calves exported in 2023, up 36,108 head or 21.6% on the 2022 figure.

A strong eastern European trade has helped drive numbers, along with the Netherlands taking an extra 16,706 calves in 2023.

Finished cattle has also seen a strong 2023 performance. A big beef price differential between the south of Ireland and Northern Ireland has meant big numbers of cattle have been moving across the border on a weekly basis for direct slaughter. Finished cattle exports are up 6,656 head or almost 20% when compared with 2022 numbers.

An outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), which is transmitted by biting midges, has locked some customers out of European countries. The disease has spread through Spain and Portugal and there are fears that with mild weather, the disease could move north to France.

The outbreak of the disease has moved some countries to source cattle from Ireland and a group of Algerians visited a number of farms last week, facilitated by Eamon Corley’s Emerald Isle beef producer group.

This group of customers are looking for 6,000 finished continental bulls or bullocks, 6,000 continental weanlings for live export and 1,500 in-calf dairy heifers.