There are still two and a half months left of 2025 but looking back, the last 12 months will go down as one of the best in terms of beef price, weanling price and weather.

Suckler farmers in particular have been enjoying unprecedented prices for weanlings over the last few months.

One of the main drivers of this increase in price has been a resetting of the supply and demand balance, with reduced supplies and increased demand – particularly from Europe for both live cattle and beef – meaning the price has increased.

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While the reasons for this shift are multifactorial, high levels of live exports over the last number of years have been a major contributing factor to the current reduced supplies.

A strong live export trade is always welcome, and demand from Europe is helping to put money in farmers’ pockets.

However, it remains to be seen whether the record numbers of animals that will leave the country in 2025 could pose a threat to the long-term future of our beef industry and, if it does, who will people point the finger at?

This week we carry the recently published Teagasc beef budgets on p34. A beef price of close to €9/kg will be needed next year for some finishing systems to break even.

Who could blame farmers who are being offered €2,500/head for weanlings, for taking that money and avoiding the risk of keeping them on and potentially losing money later? They currently have no indication of where the price will actually be in 2026.

Whether you are a factory manufacturing bedside lockers or processing animals for beef, throughput is important. If throughput falls to a low level, the amount of fixed costs attributed to those products rises as there is less product to divide the costs over.

Rising costs means there is more pressure on margin, and if the problem of low throughput persists, it isn’t good news for beef processors. Surely processors must be sitting up and taking note of reduced cattle numbers and the knock-on effect this might have for their operations.

For years, factories maintained that they were unable to offer forward price contracts to farmers, saving them for a select few mega finishers dealing in large numbers.

This policy could be coming home to roost now, with a mass exodus in the number of farmers slaughtering cattle.

Earlier this year, we revealed that the number of farmers slaughtering cattle fell by 17,400 (27%) in the last 10 years.

These farmers had enough of taking all the risk and opted out of direct slaughtering with factories. Factories’ lack of engagement on any form of forward-pricing mechanism meant that many decided that the risk was too big and walked away.

The farmers who go out to buy cattle every year on the chance of making a margin, the factories’ golden geese so to speak, are getting scarcer and scarcer on the ground.

The issue of lower numbers doesn’t completely lie at the processors’ door with government and EU agricultural policy pointing to reduced numbers of animals with more pressure likely ahead.

Factories have maintained the envious position of being able to completely hedge against any downturn in beef price by simply reducing quotes to farmers if there is a sudden market shock. The factory doesn’t carry the can, the farmer does.

For example, the reduction in beef quotes during August and September wiped close to €200/head off the value of finished animals, a loss borne completely by the finisher.

It’s now costing over €300,000 to finish 100 cattle out of a shed this winter. Factories can’t expect farmers to completely take 100% of the risk anymore.

It’s interesting to note in recent years, Irish processors rolling out youth programmes.

While this is of course a positive and should be encouraged, you can’t help but wonder whether it is too late and whether we have lost a generation of farmers.