Cuts to beef prices in recent days have been met with farmer anger, as factory agents warn that 'further difficult times' lie ahead.
eports to the Farming Independent suggest quotes for top-end cattle have slipped by 10-15c/kg in the last three weeks despite a strong trade for heavy cattle at marts.
Factory agents were not keen to discuss further price cuts preferring instead to emphasise that numbers appear to falling with last week’s kill expected to be back by 1,500 to 34,000.
However, when pressed several commented that Irish prices are “badly out of line with Europe” and need to come back. “We are currently over 30c/kg ahead of prices in Europe, and that doesn’t work” one agent commented.
It comes amid farmer anger over the cuts, with the farming organisations saying there is "no foundation for attempts to drop the price paid to farmers" just days after Brazil stopped beef exports to China after a positive BSE case there.
The Chairperson of ICMSA’s Livestock Committee, Des Morrison, accused meats plants of mounting unwarranted and unacceptable efforts this week to ‘pull’ prices to farmers in defiance of all the market facts and data.
He said that there is no basis for any reduction in beef prices and it was cynical opportunism on the part of meats plants to empty their feedlots and ramp-up supply.
“In a week when beef exports to China have commenced, where there is a suspect BSE case in Brazil, and where the EU and UK market for beef is solid, there is absolutely no market basis for meat plants to cut the price paid to farmers. What we are actually seeing now is the meat plants emptying their own feedlots to artificially boost cattle supplies and so drive down prices to farmers.
"They want to undermine farmer confidence by cutting prices in a way that will allow them to replenish their feedlots again through reduced farmer confidence around the mart ring. It’s very cynical and has no basis in real data and real figures,” he said.
IFA Livestock Chairman Brendan Golden said the gamesmanship of factories in trying to hold back on price this week is not working and the renewed farmer confidence from the potential now presented with the Chinese market will ensure prices move on.
He said Bord Bia predict supplies of beef cattle will be down by 60,000 head this year, with all of this reduction taking place in the first half of the year.
"Taking into account the throughput to-date – back in the region of 1,000 head – this points to a significant tightening in cattle supplies for the coming weeks and months as demand for beef increases."