Beef price tracker 2

Cavanjack

What about beef supplies. that’ll surely affect prices too. If there good demand from uk, Europe and China it should help stabilise prices.

White Clover

Talking down the trade is making it easier for factories to drop the price whether warranted or not.

For what it’s worth, I think it will stay north of €5 and even push on a bit at certain times over the next 12 months

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120616600#Comment_120616600

What hasn’t been factored in to this discussion is the scarcity of labour across the economy. There is plenty of work out there .

Nobody is going to farm animals and then give them to a factory or a feedlot and make no profit when a solid wage is available for agreed hours. Keep a minimum of animals to draw the BISS CRISS and ECO and tell the factories to go Foxtrot Oscar .

Jb1989

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120617089#Comment_120617089

Thats what a lot of suckler and drystock farmers are doing and will do. But The factory will have ample supply of beef to kill from the dairy herd who are booming currently, so total head kill will not reduce till the milkmen do.

charolais0153

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120617145#Comment_120617145

Most Dairy cross cattle would be at least 100 kilos lighter than sucklers They are not the problem

Jb1989

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120617987#Comment_120617987

True. But there is still enough of them out there to keep the kill near 30,000, which seems to be the spot for factory price changes.

hopeso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120618001#Comment_120618001

But the dairy men aren't finishing them..... If the beef farmer does decide to cut numbers, it's going to affect the factory and the lads trying to sell these calves....

Jb1989

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120618338#Comment_120618338

Feedlots will buy up the dairy bred calves at source and rear them to beef. Larry and Co will diverse to keep there order book full at any cost.

Bass Reeves

Will they f@@k

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120614724#Comment_120614724

It's a case if how long a piece of string is. I am a pessimistic Optimist, that means I plan for the worst but expect things to be a bit better than that.

World beef prices are generally strong , you can see them here.

https://www.bordbia.ie/farmers-growers/prices-markets/cattle-trade-prices/eu-world-cattle-prices/?country=Gt.%20Britain

you just filter the country and go down to the bottom of the page to see it. Remember all prices are excluding vat so you multiple on 5.25%, to compare Irish prices.

Generally Brazil is at 3.9/kg exc vat, US 4.9 exc vat. You can ad 20 and 25c/ kg to them to get the Irish equivalent.

Interestingly the two big EU countries that were traditionally bottom of the pile, The Netherlands is 60c/ kg ahead of us for young bulls( comparing to our R3 steer price) and Poland is ahead as well. Irish processors are working at a serious margin at present IMO.

Long term I think it may be hard to sustain above 5/ kg. But countries like Australia and the US are going on and out if drought every 3-5 years. It takes them 1-2 years to recover from a drought. Brazil will probably have to stop destroying rain forrest to create new pasture.

I would not be making stupid decisions on it but beef will probably vary from 4.5-5.5 base, however in the short term grain flooding out of Ukraine/ Russia may effect it for 1-2 years when the war ends. However again this is now morea risk for milk than beef.

@j1989 Feedlots have no interest in raising calves. They would incur the full cost of bringing the animals to finish. It would also have nitrates implications for them. They need cheaply produced stores to make a profit. It not something that is compatible with feedlot production.

If you look it generally feedlots are reducing the length of time they try to have cattle. They want a more forward store every year. Many now only buy QA stores as they want the option of slaughter after the minimum number of days they have to keep to get QA and other bonuses

Siamsa Sessions

I thought most feedlots are linked with factories and so QA doesn’t make a huge difference coz they’ve their own price anyway?

Re cutting back numbers: did ye not read the IFJ this week??? You’re supposed to keep spreading more of that fertiliser to get more silage in the yard to feed more cattle over winter. More more more!!!

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120619260#Comment_120619260

Ah....the Irish (everyone except the majority of farmers) Farmers Pravda

hopeso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120619260#Comment_120619260

Yes, they are generally linked to the factory, but the markets the factory supply want QA beef, so it amounts to the same thing really. They need QA beef.

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120619260#Comment_120619260

Their customers in the most require qa. The option is there for the supermarket to trace the animal based on the herd number.

Siamsa Sessions

I can see why factories might prefer QA beef since it gives them a nice story to tell to their customers.

But if QA really mattered, they’d pay a real premium for it and they’d refuse to take non-QA cattle rather than just using it as an excuse to pay the farmer less.

charolais0153

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120619260#Comment_120619260

Love the conspiracy theories. Maybe they don’t want fodder crisis 2024 and all that comes with it. The best growth of year is gone. If theirs bad first crops. Need to fire out manure to get the feed

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120620695#Comment_120620695

I don't think it's conspiracy theories. Fair enough on winter fodder, that's understandable. But a couple of weeks ago reps from the fertiliser industry had articles out about the importance of spreading it, a few days after their profits were announced. And then this week the CSO show that sales plummetted in the last 6 months. Then lo and behold, the IFJ (and I'm sure other outlets) are back out telling ya to spread it quick. Not so much conspiracy theories, but vested interests

I was talking to one of the bigger factory agents who is brutal negative 99.9% of the time I talk to him but he said this stunt of pulling prices isn't going to work because the cattle aren't there and the price should go up over the next while. Literally God was a boy the last time he talked up the trade.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120619260#Comment_120619260

Factories require QA beef for supermarkets and restaurants. They cannot pass non QA beef off as QA. They have allowed feedlots to reduce the final farm age to either 30 or 50 days it may even be lower. But the 80 days on QA farms is a QA condition that they cannot get around

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120621327#Comment_120621327

Rubbish, they can do whatever they like.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120621279#Comment_120621279

If the cattle are not there then there is no point increasing prices at this stage with the grass cattle on the horizon.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120621678#Comment_120621678

There's no grass cattle to come down here for a good while, done f all of a thrive so far this year on grass.

Siamsa Sessions

I’d suggest QA is not as black n’white as the discussion here suggests. Neither do I think there’s whole scale corruption selling non-QA as QA. It’s probably more like “grass fed” where there’s certain tolerances involved

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120620969#Comment_120620969

The good thing is that they are wasting their ink telling farmers to spread. A lot of lads put out very little last year and got on as well (All be it the year was a good growing one) the same approach will be taken this year.

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120618881#Comment_120618881

I could not see that happening either. I rear a few and some of my outlying yearlings pay but to be honest the yearling heifers on the slats don't cover themselves. Not down here anyway. It's definitely costs over 650 last year including calf price to rear a yearling to 300kg. That's only feed. Lucky to get 700 for a heifer

Jb1989

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120622488#Comment_120622488

True.

But my reply was to someone saying that the suckler farmer needs to stop to lessen the head of animals in the country, thus increaseing the value of the remaining national herd, which will be predominantly dairy based.

Which I agree with, but there will be enough dairy bulls to keep the kill at the 30,000 plus, thus keeping a ceiling on prices.

Most dairy men don't want the hassle of rearing these calves, so that leaves Larry and Co to source a feed lot system to rear these calves, of course on a set budget.

Again my reply was to the reducing of suckler bred to lessen the national herd.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120621400#Comment_120621400

Then why did the processors pay through the nose for cattle this time last year. Ya you could expect AA or HE as DNA testing could show a serious discrepancy but they flat priced QA assured Friesian's and other cattle as well.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120622528#Comment_120622528

Very few Friesian's are killed as bulls, yes this year a good few lads went back to the U24&U16 young bulls. However the numbers are still only 30% of the bull era of 10 years ago.

As for feedlot's getting into calf production you do not understand the system. There may be limited excursions but they are multiple limiting factors.

Mainly nitrates, no grazing and costs of infrastructure

Siamsa Sessions

The factories already have calf-rearing enterprises to get the calf to store or finish stage. I’m one of the thousands doing it for them!

They control beef price which sets the price for everything else back thru the supply line. As long as Teagasc and IFJ keep promoting dairy beef, then Larry and Co are not likely to change the system they have in place at the moment.

This is no conspiracy theory. It’s just how the beef sector is structured in Ireland. There’s no alternative routes to market. Alternative enterprises are mostly organics, rare breeds, minimum stocking rate with max payments, etc. These are viable part-time options in my book for work-life-cash balance.

The more-more-more model pushed by the “industry” suits the factory and supermarket more than the farmer. QA is then the factory/supermarket PR to take the bad look off the more-more-more feedlot system.

893bet

So it’s the suckler man’s fault that prices are kept low for dairy bred stock (and all stock). Not to mention that for every suckler cow/farm that reduces it is absorbed by a dairy farm that moved to intensive production. Wager without looking that there has been more dairy cattle added in the last 10 years than sucklers have reduced.

Factories love one farmer blaming the other with poorly thought out theories.

And feedlots are going to buy caves and keep them 12-18 month rather than buy stores and finish in less than 3months. That brought the lols.

mr.stonewall

This is an interesting area as to where to industry is going. The big push now is for qa for the life of the beast. Just look at SCEP and also the various club the factories have started in the past 3 years. Kepaks effort to have a closed loop on inputs and where stock come from, Larry's then with single move cattle killed under certain ages. All of these schemes have a common theme which is QA for life and a reduction of moves.

This reduction of moves and qa for life seems to be the direction that the want to go. The greenwashing element then will be taken care by BB for them. We must remember that it's not the the image of landcrusier speeding up and down the long feed passage of a feedlot that charlie and co take with them on the trade missions. It's the farmers here out in a field of grass and cattle gathered around.

Finally it's worth a Google of ABP new scheme in the UK ( game changer) They buy AA calves, send them to calf rearer, them a store rearer and finally a finisher. Each farmer paid for their work but don't own the stock. They are actively recruiting for each of the stages particular, calf suppliers and rearers. Sounds familiar to the chicken industry.

Expect it come to our shores soon