The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has made available data on the average prices paid for calves based on breed, age and Commercial Beef Value (CBV).
The data includes all genotyped calves sold at marts between March 10 and April 3 of this year.
The ICBF has also confirmed to Agriland that it is currently working on including this information on its weekly statistics page on the ICBF website.
From here, the information will be available for farmers to view and will be updated on a weekly basis. The ICBF has emphasised that “a big focus will be on the CBV value as well as the price”.
The information will be made available to farmers in a format similar to the table below:
As can be seen from the table above, the information is broken down into three breed types, namely traditional beef-breed sires, continental beef-breed sires and dairy-breed sired calves.
The three breeds are then broken down into two age sub-categories as well as a bottom third, average and top third grouping based on the calf’s CBV.
The data available will also show farmers the volume of calves sold in each of the three CBV groupings, what the average CBV of the group was and the average price these calves made.
In each category, the older calves with the higher CBVs are making a clear price premium.
This is in line with trends being seen at marts across the country where there is a better demand for the heavier calves and less demand for the younger, lighter calves.
The top third of dairy calves sold over 21 days sired by traditional beef breeds have had a CBV of €105 and sold for an average price of €172/head.
The top third of continental-sired dairy calves sold over 21 days have had a CBV of €164 and sold for an average of €231/head.
The top third of dairy-sired calves sold over 21 days of age had a CBV of €20 and sold for an average of €52.