On page 28, Adam Woods details five reasons to be cheerful as a beef and suckler farmer in 2025. It’s a combination of lower supply and higher demand. It’s quite a while since such positivity in the beef sector has existed. Live exporters continue to take cattle off the island. Suckler numbers continue to decline. Higher quality weanlings are in short supply and no doubt it has spiked demand in marts.

Mercosur is obviously the elephant in the room and particularly what impact it will have on rural areas in a country like ours. We badly need some significant local research and analysis on lower suckler numbers in western and midland counties.