The supply of local prime cattle to NI factories during 2020 is forecast to be 3.7% lower year on year, equating to almost 13,000 fewer cattle.

Speaking in Portadown in Tuesday, Seamus McMenamin from the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) said that a smaller prime cattle kill is expected during every quarter of the year.

The latest forecast suggests that supplies of prime cattle will be 5.5% lower in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period last year.

“There was a big increase in the cattle kill in the last quarter of 2019, so a lot of cattle that we thought would be killed in this quarter are actually already gone,” he told members of the NI Institute of Agricultural Science.

“We are looking at very tight supplies of local cattle, and that is expected to continue right through 2020,” McMenamin said.

The kill is forecast to be down 4.6% in the second quarter, 2.6% lower in the third and down 2.1% in the final three months of the year.

McMenamin said that this was based on fewer beef bred cattle and dairy sired male cattle on NI farms at the start of 2020.

The number of beef sired cattle aged 18 to 24 months was 5.1% lower at the start of the year, the 12- to 18-month bracket was down 6.3% on year earlier levels and numbers of beef cattle aged six to 12 months were down 6.1%.

Dairy sired males are typically killed at 15-16 months and their numbers in the 12-18 months bracket were down 6.5% on 1 January 2020.

“These forecasts are based on import and export levels staying the same. If there are any major shift in imports, you could see it counteracted,” McMenamin added.

Sheep

On the sheep trade, the LMC economist said that forecasting lamb numbers for the year ahead is difficult because of the short production cycle in sheep farming.

“There seems to be less hoggets about and the trade has improved in recent weeks. You are getting £4.20-4.30p/kg for hoggets which is more or less on par with last year,” McMenamin said.

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