The Irish Farmers Journal carried out a ration price survey this week. The results of the survey are shown in Table 1. Beef nuts are as high as €305/t in the west and as low as €257/t in the east.

The results show that prices for a lot of rations have remained stable since our survey last October (Figure 1). This is despite recent reductions in different types of feeds.

Beef finisher rations have fallen by approximately €10/t from some merchants. Dairy nuts have remained relatively unchanged since last year.

As always, there are significant differences in prices between similar ration types, with the highest-priced feeds not necessarily the highest quality.

Deals should be weighed up on energy content, protein content (and the quality of that protein) and price.

Irish livestock ration prices continue to be very much driven by international market forces.

Domestic grain supplies only represent about one third of total usage in Irish feed mills. The majority of our livestock feed rations are made up of imported cereal grains.

Last year will live in the mind of feed merchants and co-ops for a long time. A very wet winter, followed by snow in spring and straight into a prolonged drought saw phones ringing off the hook for three quarters of the year.

Most merchants saw their stocks of feed cleared out and many made the decision to fill stores to capacity with grain heading into the winter. This translated into higher ration prices for farmers.

We understand prices remain unchanged mainly because millers bought so much forward at the prices of the time and the winter turned out milder than usual, so these stocks are still in the system.

Prices easing

Global cereal prices have been easing recently, with prices back for soya bean meal, rolled wheat and rolled barley. Soya bean meal was at a high of €440/t in May 2018 and has fallen gradually since to a value of approximately €327/t this week.

Similarly, rolled barley has fallen from a high of over €220/t as recently as January this year to just under €200/t now.

Rolled wheat has also seen a decrease in value, with prices dropping from €225/t earlier this month back to approximately €215/t now.

As a result, IFA inputs project team leader John Coughlan has called on feed mills to pass through immediately the fall in feed ingredient raw material prices to livestock farmers.

“There has been a very significant drop in the price of many key feed ingredients used in compound livestock rations over the last six months, ranging from €15/t to €90/t,” Coughlan argued.

However, it seems millers have become more dependent of late on other ingredients to manufacture rations.

The one constituent that has represented value for merchants this year and last year has been maize.

It has helped prevent major price increases in feed rations making up a large proportion of many rations.

One feed merchant we contacted during the survey outlined how his company always aimed to buy locally grown cereals because they feel it is a more sustainable system versus feeding a ration/nut containing largely imported ingredients.

However, he said this season, every 10% inclusion of native (GM-free) cereals versus imported maize added €3.50/t to the finished ration price. So a ration containing 30% native wheat/barley is costing approximately €10/t more than the equivalent ration where imported maize was used.

With maize making up the bulk constituent of feed rations, falls in wheat or barley prices will likely be slow to have an effect on domestic ration prices.

Maize meal remains steady at a price of approximately €180/t ex-port compared with rolled barley at a cost of €200/t.