Press Release - Finishers can sidestop factory price stranglehold by selling their cattle?

Finishers can sidestep factory price stranglehold by selling their cattle on the mainland as heavy stores instead.

Beef cattle bred in Northern Ireland will earn more money for their owners if they are offered as heavy stores to British feeders instead of being sold to local factories as slaughter cattle.

This is the view of the National Beef Association’s Northern Ireland chairman, Oisin Murnion, who is dismayed by the 252p per dwkg average paid locally for R4 classification fat cattle compared with around 285p in Northern England and about 294p in Scotland.

He sees the sale of more, forward, store cattle in mainland markets as the best way of sidestepping unnecessarily low factory prices and putting more money into farmer’s bank accounts.

And insists that the approximately 45p per deadweight kilo, or £130-£140 per head, income difference between the value of similar quality slaughter cattle presented in Northern Ireland and those offered elsewhere in the UK has become to great to ignore.

“It is obvious the factories have the Northern Ireland finisher in a vice-like grip and ways must be discovered to break this financial chokehold before beef cattle production across the Province expires through suffocation,” Mr Murnion explained.

“Older store cattle are currently dearer by an average of £40-£60 a head on a cross-Britain basis this year compared with last and it is expected that mainland finishers, especially those with specialist feed lots which aim to turn out slaughter cattle within 12-14 weeks, will soon be struggling to maintain throughput because suitable British stock will be in even shorter supply.”

“Beef farmers in Northern Ireland should take advantage of this and immediately divert heavy stores to selected auction sales in the North of England and the Scottish Borders instead of taking the animals to slaughter weight in Northern Ireland itself.”

Mr Murnion points out that that dramatic fall in the use of beef bull semen in the UK dairy herd over 2007-2008 is expected to result in the net loss of around 126,000 beef cross slaughter cattle over 2010 – even after the increase in the number of purebred Holstein bulls being reared is taken into account.

“This is the equivalent of a 7-7.5 per cent fall in the number of slaughter cattle expected to be available in the UK next year and  comes on top of the regular annual drop that will occur as a result of  progressive annual contraction in the UK beef and dairy herds over 2007-2008,” said the Co Down farmer.

“This serious squeeze on supply will make mainland feeders even keener to top up their sheds with store cattle from Northern Ireland and our factories can only blame themselves if they find themselves short.”

“Some breeders in the ROI have spotted the advantages of side-stepping their factories too and over 5,000 stores have been shipped into Britain so far this year – which is a year on year rise of over 500 per cent.”

“However they face trading difficulties, and ultimate slaughter value problems, triggered by the non-transfer of farm assurance and then not being of British origin.”

“Fortunately none of these pose problems for FQAS cattle from Northern Ireland, because they were born in the UK, and their beef also qualifies for the premium British label preferred by mainland supermarkets which means they would retain full slaughter value too.”

For more information contact:

Oisin Murnion, chairman NBA Northern Ireland. Tel.  07739 632048