Marts look set to record one of their better years in 2022, with bovine throughput on target to finish the year in the region of 75,000 head higher.

The number of cattle traded up to the end of October was recorded at 1,569,805 head, an increase of 75,167 head, while the number of animals presented in marts but not sold reduced by 14,074 head to 85,075.

In addition to higher throughput, many marts have also benefitted from increased commission rates stemming from an increase in the value of animals traded.

This has been most apparent in mart commission rates calculated on a percentage over flat-rate basis. This increase has been greatly welcomed in light of the escalation in operating costs (mainly insurance and council rates) in recent years.

Farm-to-farm movements

In contrast, the number of bovine farm-to-farm movements recorded for the first 10 months of the year reduced by 126,057 head to 1,212,457.

This form of movements had increased sharply in 2020 on the back of COVID-19 restrictions, as demonstrated in Figure 2, but has eased back again in 2021 and 2020.

As can be seen in Figure 3, farm-to-farm movements are most prevalent in the period from March to the end of May.

This is underpinned by movements of calves and dairy stock. This is backed up by the fact that some 49% of farm-to-farm movements occurred in Munster, while 31% were recorded in Leinster.

There was just 13% of farm-to-farm movements in Connacht and 7% in Ulster.

Trends in mart sales

Figure 4 details trends in mart sales for the last four years.

The drop in throughput due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 is immediately visible.

Throughput in 2022 has trended above recent years, with the exception of a brief spell in July and August.

Throughput since has been similar to 2021 and it is likely that there will have been little change for November and December when these figures are published.

The same regional trends are also apparent with mart sales as farm-to-farm movements, with in excess of 45% of movements taking place there.

Leinster and Connacht account for 22.7% and 21.3% of sales respectively, with the remaining 10.6% of sales in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.