Irish farmers are benefiting from strong demand for live cattle on key export markets in 2018. Buying for export is a driver at livestock weekly mart sales, helping to put a floor under prices for young stock and injecting confidence into the whole trade.

Total exports have now reached 126,871 head, up by 20% on this time last year.

Calf exports dominate the first half of the year and exports have been buoyant in 2018. By mid-May, calf exports had reached 116,239 head, an increase of 35% on 2017.

At the start of the year, Irish exporters had to compete with strong calf numbers available in Holland from Dutch and German dairy herds. But after a relatively slow start, exports to Holland have now exceeded 40,000 head leaving them marginally ahead of 2017 levels.

In contrast, exports to Spain have been buoyant jumping to over 40,000 head which is a 34% increase. Rearing farms and feedlots in Spain are experiencing strong export demand for reared live cattle in nearby markets in north Africa and the Middle East.

Exports to Holland have now fallen off as the numbers of young dairy calves available have dried up. However, exports to Spain usually run on through the summer months as the demand is for older and heavier calves.

This demand is expected to continue to be strong over the coming weeks. Spanish buyers are taking heifer calves, which is welcome.

Belgium has also been a strong market for Irish calves in 2018. The total exported there is 12,027, more than double the level of 2017.

Exports to France stand at 7,030, a 200% increase on the same period in 2017. Both markets are recovering to levels of two and three years ago.

Weanlings

Weanling exports are running behind last year’s levels. To date, some 5,776 weanlings have been exported, the majority of which were bulls sent to Turkey.

Exports there reached 5,820 by early May, up from 4,569 in the same period of 2017. Weanling exports to the continent have been relatively quiet. There are a number of factors behind this – EU beef markets seeing average demand and exporters are concentrating instead on Turkey.

Weanling availability will rise in the second half of the year and, with that, weanling exports to both EU and non-EU markets.

Exporters, and Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed, are hopeful that big numbers will go to Turkey. That market’s big demand is for bull weanlings but to date such imports have been centrally run by a Government agency on a tender basis.

In January, the Turkish agriculture minister told Minister Creed that the government was stepping back and that private companies would be allowed import weanling bulls from the end of this month.

Irish exporters are hoping for an announcement to this effect in Turkey in the next few weeks. The major exporters have begun buying bull weanlings to have available to export there when the market opens.

In recent weeks one exporter, John Hallissey, has been sending suitable bull weanlings to Slovakia with the intention of them being ready to deliver in to Turkey when the trade opens. The animals will complete all necessary quarantine and other tests at this staging post.