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Higher numbers of prime cattle in NI (steers, heifers and young bulls) originating from the dairy herd, are having an impact on the conformation of cattle at slaughter, with O set to overtake R as the most common grade.
Data obtained from the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) shows that the percentage of prime cattle grading O has increased from 32.65% to 36.53% over the last five years (see Table 1). Over the same period, both R grades and P grades are down.
With suckler cow numbers in NI at a 30-year low in 2019, and dairy cow numbers at record levels in 2016, the dairy influence on the beef kill has significantly increased in recent years, which inevitably hits the proportion of cattle grading U and R.
In 2019, a total of 43% of all prime cattle killed in NI were out of dairy dams.
But at the other end of the conformation scale, with more dairy farmers using sexed semen to produce replacement heifers, that has allowed a shift towards using beef semen on poorer performing cows.
In 2019, 28% of all prime cattle were beef x dairy, leaving only 15% as pure dairy bred. The result of that is also less P grades in the overall slaughter mix.
Across all grades, O+3+ has been the most popular individual grade in NI over the last five years, although if we group the sub-classes for conformation and fat into the five overall grades (EUROP, fat class 1-5), R3 is the most common grade, followed by O3. Together they account for nearly 40% of all cattle killed in NI. There are twice as many cattle grading R3 and O3 than there are grading U3.
In-spec grades
If we look at prime cattle that are killed within what are generally seen as “in-spec” grades for local processors (E, U, R, at fat class 3, 4- and 4=; and O3), the data shows that five years ago, these grades covered 60.1% of the kill. Since then, with a growing dairy influence, this figure has been gradually in decline, and by 2019/20, it had dropped to 57.6%.
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