Latest figures from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) show that a total of 73,349 calves have been exported as of Sunday, March 31 (week 13).
In week 12 of this year alone, just over 15,300 calves were exported from Ireland.
While weekly calf export numbers have been increasing after getting off to a slow start, total calf exports to date this year are 16% or 13,933 head below last year.
In the first 13 weeks of 2023, over 87,200 head of Irish calves had been exported, versus the 73,349 head exported in the first 13 weeks of this year.
The table below shows Irish calf exports by destination in the first 13 weeks of 2022, 2023 and 2024:
2022 2023 2024 2023/24 Netherlands 50,402 50,511 33,058 -35% Spain 26,310 21,867 24,056 +10% Italy 557 4,983 6,042 -21% Poland 3,376 7,283 5,586 23% Romania – – 2,499 – Northern Ireland 1,826 2,339 1,525 -35% Croatia – – 576 – Other 577 299 7 -98% Total 83,048 87,282 73,349 -16%
As can be seen from the table above, the largest market for Irish calves to date this year has been the Netherlands with over 33,000 calves being sold to the region followed by Spain with just over 24,000 Irish calves going to the country to date this year.
The number of calves exported to the Netherlands has fallen while the number of calves exported to Spain has increased slightly.
As mentioned above, the overall volume of calves exported is down 16%.
There are a number of reasons for this, including a slight delay in the larger volumes of calves arriving at marts this spring and difficulties for livestock sailing conditions at the start of the Irish calf export season.
Calf slaughter
There has been a decrease in the number of calves slaughtered at DAFM-approved factories this year.
As of Sunday, March 31, just over 12,700 calves under eight-months-of-age have been slaughtered. In the same time period of last year, over 25,500 calves had been slaughtered.