The outbreak of Covid-19 in Ireland gave Irish livestock marts one of two options: either go online, or cease trading for the duration of the pandemic.
Needless to say, the latter would have been of little benefit to anyone, and so farmers and livestock marts alike were hurled into the world of online trading. Irish cattle sales were being viewed through phone screens, laptops and tablets, countrywide and further afield.
As cattle marts have now reopened and farmers have returned to the mart rings – albeit with social distancing in place – the presence of online buyers avidly watching the sale from their homes, farms and full-time jobs has remained, with large numbers of cattle in mart rings still being bought by online bidders.
The move to online bidding during the pandemic shows just how well farmers and marts alike can adapt to change when needs be.
Taking a look at cattle movement data from 2020, we can see that farm-to-farm movements of cattle surpassed the number of cattle traded in Irish marts last year.
The table below gives a monthly breakdown of cattle movements from both marts, and directly from farm-to-farm.
Month Mart movements Farm-to-farm movements Total moves January 69,693 74,882 144,575 February 150,476 135,343 285,819 March 169,699 248,841 418,540 April 80,749 290,547 371,296 May 97,959 219,908 317,867 June 104,338 109,386 213,724 July 117,071 76,293 193,364 August 125,099 65,491 190,590 September 167,348 79,391 246,739 October 229,948 119,502 349,450 November 127,478 128,784 256,262 December 90,832 88,079 178,911 Total 1,530,690 1,636,447 3,167,137
As the table above indicates, 3,167,137 cattle were traded between farmers in Ireland last year.
Just under half (48.3%) of all cattle traded in Ireland in 2020 were sold at marts, while the remainder were traded directly from one farm to another.
In 2019, 56% or 1,669,138 cattle went through Irish marts.
Farm-to-farm movements spiked last spring, as the country was in a full lockdown and marts were only beginning to find their feet with online bidding mechanisms.
The total number of livestock movements in 2020 increased by over 196,000 head of cattle when compared to the number of cattle movements in 2019 (2,970,472).
The Irish cattle marts have overcome significant setbacks in the past and their ability to adapt to change – which was shown evidently last year – will surely underpin and strengthen their purpose in the cattle trade for many years to come.