The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) is calling on meat factories and Bord Bia to explain how a €1/kg price differential between British and Irish prime cattle can be justified.
The association’s beef committee chair Edmund Graham claimed that the price gap “shows that factories are fleecing farmers”.
“This differential is the highest in living memory and comes at a time when prices on the continent are moving upwards.
“In fact, our price for prime beef (heifers, steers, young bulls) is now a good 30c/kg behind the EU average,” he said.
Beef price
Graham said that this price difference has come at a time when costs on beef farms are “on a completely different level to a few years ago”.
“If that was not enough, farmers are being asked to do more and more on climate and other environmental indicators,” he said.
“The reality is that there is now no hope of asking beef farmers to do anything in terms of lowering the age of slaughter because factories just keep fleecing them at every available opportunity.
“The €1/kg differential represents a new low in terms of price. ICSA is calling for an explanation for this.
“ICSA is also writing to the new Food Regulator to look into how such a differential can be justified,” Graham said.
Cattle
Meanwhile, a recent cattle supply forecast from Bord Bia showed that the factory supply of prime cattle including heifers and steers (bullocks) is expected to increase over the winter months.
The supply forecast to the end of 2023 suggests that the overall factory cattle throughput for this year is likely to show a decline of 20,000 head on last year’s cattle supply.
Figures from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) show that the factory supply of cattle to date this year is over 53,000 head (excluding veal) below last year’s supply level.
Bord Bia has said that prime cattle numbers are expected to recover “slightly” by a margin of 4-5% from October to December of this year.
A similar trend is also expected in the first quarter of 2024, with cattle numbers expected to be up 4% from January-March 2024.