Supermarkets’ stance stings suckler farmers

APPARENTLY now the markets in Britain and in Europe want us to castrate all the weanlings from the suckler herd. Ironically, it is the suckler producers and beef finishers who are really feeling the squeeze from the current catastrophe in the beef trade.

The bull beef crisis rumbles on with meat processors and retailers apparently oblivious to the damage that is being done to confidence in the suckler and finishing sectors.

It seems that supermarkets have become hung up on refusing beef from bulls over 16 months but without any real justification.

Do they really understand what this means for the supply of quality beef from the suckler herd?

The problem is that the suckler farmer, who has bred the top of the range continental weanling, is anxiously looking on as the specialist bull beef finishers struggle to kill cattle at any kind of realistic price.

The question confronting the suckler farmer is whether these farmers will be back to buy more weanling bulls.

Part of the problem seems to be a glut of Friesian bulls which were reared in Ireland instead of being exported for veal production in the Netherlands.

Beef farmers are very sore over being told that there was going to be a viable business feeding black and white bulls and now seeing the rug pulled out from under them.

However, it is the future of the suckler herd that is most alarming. While dairy calves are ultimately a by-product of a profitable enterprise where the future is bright, there doesn’t seem to be an appreciation of just how disastrous the uncertainty around bull beef is for sucklers.

COMPETITION

Suckler farmers who produce top continental weanlings do so in the hope that competition between Irish finishers and live exports will ensure strong prices for weanlings.

Without this competition, the viability of the enterprise is non-existent.

However, the suckler farmer needs to offer his weanlings as bulls because many of the Irish finishers want the efficiencies of bulls rather than steers.

Practically all live exports are for bulls.

In turn, the specialist Irish finisher is geared up for bulls.

Margins in any beef finishing operation are tight and specialist finishers cannot justify paying €1,000 for a weanling that has to be castrated and then finished over a long period of time.

The retail sector seems to think that the solution is 16-month bull beef but this ignores the reality that costs are much lower where the weanling is grown for a period on grass.

In practice, this means having bulls fit for slaughter at 20-24 months of age, not 16 months.

The problem is that farmers are also told that grass-fed beef is better for the consumer but 16-month bull beef totally rules out grass.

In addition, finishing on grass is our competitive advantage; whereas on the continent they have the advantage of cheaper concentrates. We cannot compete with mainland Europe on a concentrate-based diet.

Retailers and processors need to sort out this mess rapidly.

Otherwise, there is no point in pretending that there is a future for the high quality, continental breeds and the suckler herd in this country.