Winter finishers continue to count their losses with beef quotes dropping by €0.30/kg or €100/head over the last three weeks.
An Irish Farmers Journal winter-finishing budget completed last autumn showed a 550kg store bullock purchased at €2,778 (€5.05/kg) would need a beef price of €8.47/kg to break even this spring.
At today’s beef price, that bullock with a 413kg carcase is coming in at €7.18/kg. That’s a loss of €1.29/kg or €533/head. Some will point to expensive stores but, cheap stores won’t fix the problem.
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The farmer that purchased 50 of those bullocks spent €138,900 buying them and another €35,950 bringing them to finish.
They tied up €174,850 in capital to make a loss of €26,650. The system is broken and farmers cannot afford to take on all the risk at the level of investment now required.
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Winter finishers continue to count their losses with beef quotes dropping by €0.30/kg or €100/head over the last three weeks.
An Irish Farmers Journal winter-finishing budget completed last autumn showed a 550kg store bullock purchased at €2,778 (€5.05/kg) would need a beef price of €8.47/kg to break even this spring.
At today’s beef price, that bullock with a 413kg carcase is coming in at €7.18/kg. That’s a loss of €1.29/kg or €533/head. Some will point to expensive stores but, cheap stores won’t fix the problem.
The farmer that purchased 50 of those bullocks spent €138,900 buying them and another €35,950 bringing them to finish.
They tied up €174,850 in capital to make a loss of €26,650. The system is broken and farmers cannot afford to take on all the risk at the level of investment now required.
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