Red meat sector needs more respect

B appreciated eing married to Ian who’s an auctioneer has given me an insight into the work that goes into marketing and selling livestock which I hadn’t quite as a farmer.

Over the past few months I’ve been aware that the fat price for cattle has been on a downward spiral. I regularly hear Ian tell his customers on the phone that the fat cattle price is back.

What I hadn’t appreciated until I was recently out for dinner with friends who fatten cattle, was just by how much in real terms they’re being squeezed.

The fat cattle which they are currently marketing are back 30p/kg on the year. On average that comes to around £100 to £120/head less. Add in the inflationary pressures of increased feed, straw and fuel costs and that same beast is costing £50 to £70/head more to produce than last year. A double whammy to already tight profit margins.

You don’t need to be a genius to see a storm looming on the horizon with unsustainable returns for finishers.

Add to the mix the claims coming from the US Ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, writing in The Daily Telegraph urging the UK to embrace American farming methods to seal a transatlantic trade deal.

Chlorine-washed chicken and feeding growth hormones to cattle are “the future of farming” while the EU’S “traditional approach” belongs in the past.

These are worrying times indeed with the US keen to get their foot in the door and into our markets.

We need to protect our Scotch Beef brand and the high quality welfare and production standards which it guarantees to our consumers, whatever happens with the ongoing protracted Brexit negotiations.

I feel sorry for our end customers who are buying beef. Are they seeing any benefit from the lower farm gate prices being paid to finishers ?

Not from what I can see while I’m food shopping.

So where are the profits going? Surely it’s time that the shoppers started to receive the benefit of reduced costs which truly reflects the farmer’s lower returns?

Lamb is also coming under pressure and being sold at less money. 40kg lambs this week were back 22p/kg against the same type of lambs this week last year. That’s a reduction of just under £9/head.

The one saving grace for the fat lamb finishers this winter has been the open and kind weather which has certainly reduced some of the costs involved with many finishing off grass.

The meat companies and the retailers need to be careful that they don’t go to the well once too often as it may eventually dry up.

We all need each other, from the farmer to the consumer, and everyone in-between but we also desperately need more fairness, respect and transparency throughout the red meat sector.

It’s up to us to protect our Scotch Beef.