The past year has presented farmers with serious production difficulties because of unusual weather from heavy snow and a late spring to an exceptionally dry summer.

Autumn was kind from a farming perspective and allowed extra grazing and silage to be harvested.

On prices, after a strong spring, they began falling in June and have continued falling since.

As well as bad prices in the lead-up to Christmas, farmers are having to wait weeks to get cattle killed, as factories struggle to keep the beef moved, which is in complete contrast to last year.

Why?

Whenever the Irish factory kill goes over 35,000 per week, prices come under pressure and factories are then chasing sales.

This year, it has been a weak market across the EU, as it is not only in Ireland that output is increasing.

The Irish kill is expected to reach a 20-year high, being around 56,000 more than last year, which was an increase on the year before.

The EU kill is also higher, particularly for cows which were culled early because of drought, and the heifer kill is also over 6% up on 2017.

Overall, the amount of beef produces in the EU is up 1.7% for the period January to September 2018 when compared with the same period the previous year.

Imports and exports

For the period January to October 2018, exports are 621,390t carcase weight equivalent (CWE), which is a reduction of 2.7% on the previous year.

The main export destinations are Turkey on 89,604t CWE and Hong Kong on 59,762t CWE.

As well as production being up, imports in the first ten months of the year are also up.

In total, the EU imported 288,587t CWE, which is 11.3% more than was imported for the period January to October 2017.

The big supplier is Brazil, which sent 115,333t CWE, which is 40% of total EU beef imports.

Argentina is resuming its place as a global beef superpower, sending 59,940t CWE in the first 10 months of the year, which is 20% of the EU total imports and an increase of 40% on Argentina’s sales to the EU in the same period 2017.

The other big South American supplier to the EU is Uruguay, which exported 46,451t CWE in the first 10 months of the year, which was 4% less than for the same period in 2017.

Hides

As well as production and imports of beef being higher and exports lower in 2018, the hide value has collapsed, reducing another revenue stream for beef animals.

Hides are now worth just €30 for prime cattle and €10 for cows, which is less than half their value from a couple of years ago.

This is because leather is out of fashion for footwear and the luxury car market, another major user, is depressed, with huge stocks of unsold cars.

All of these factors have combined to leave a depressed beef market at the end of 2018 and there is little to suggest that there will be an immediate improvement at the start of 2019.