The live export trade for calves has endured massive weather-related disruption in recent weeks. Numerous sailings for calves were cancelled, resulting in a backlog developing on farms and weaker demand in mart sales.

The latest Department of Agriculture live export figures, for the week ending 1 March 2020, show the extent to which weather curtailed volumes moving. There were just 3,009 calves exported compared to 9,582 for the corresponding week in 2019. This also fails to take into account that live exports in that particular week in 2019 were also marginally curtailed by weather.

The Netherlands was the main destination, accounting for 2,010 head (1,990 dairy calves and 20 beef sired) followed by 417 calves exported to Spain (331 dairy and 86 beef-sired calves). The first calf exports of the season to Belgium took place, with 357 dairy calves and two beef-sired calves. The other destination was Northern Ireland, with 161 dairy calves and 60 beef calves exported there.

Year-to-date exports

The latest week’s exports bring the total volume of calves exported for the year to date to 19,178. This is significantly behind the figure of 32,884 calves exported in the same period in 2019.

However, the trade is getting back on track at a critical time, with all sailings last week unaffected. The number of calves exported in the corresponding week in 2019 was 14,470 head but, as already mentioned, numbers moving were boosted by weather curtailing normal delivery in the previous week.

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