Beef farmers attack retailers

THE National Beef Association chairman, Oisin Murnion, was unrepentant yesterday in continuing to target several major retailers over the poor price they are paying producers for their beef.

"The beef buyers at Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's hold the future depth of the UK beef industry in their hands. If they do not immediately pay prime cattle processors more money for retail packs, they will force an unwanted, and unnecessary, contraction in the national breeding cow herd."

He said he had been speaking to a producer who had just decided to give up keeping cattle because they were not delivering the financial returns needed to be viable.

This producer's position was, according to Murnion, typical of thousands of specialist beef farmers who are looking closely at this autumn's depressed cattle market and wondering whether to reduce their commitment to beef production, or even drop out altogether.

He blamed the meat buyers for the problem and described them as "single minded, career men and women, who are playing price games with beef displayed on supermarket shelves".

Cereal crop falls

ALTHOUGH there are still thousands of acres of grain in the North-east of Scotland to harvest, the Scottish Government yesterday issued their first estimate of this year's cereal and oilseed harvest. The statisticians reckon that the overall yield of the 2010 Scottish cereal crop will be 2,763 million tonnes, which is a 0.8 per cent fall from last year. The reduction was largely brought about by a fall in acreage of 23,000 hectares with an increase in yield to 6.5 tonnes per hectare failing to compensate.

The barley crop is the big loser with production down by 277,000 tonnes, or 15 per cent, to 1.628 million tonnes.

In contrast there has been a big swing to wheat with production increased by 247,000 tonnes, or 33 per cent to 994,000 tonnes. The area under wheat increased by 19,000 hectares, 20 per cent, and average yields increased 11 per cent to 8.9 tonnes per hectare

Oats do not feature highly but production increased by 7,500 tonnes or 5.8 per cent to 138,000 tonnes.

Oilseed rape production in Scotland increased by 31,000 tonnes or 30 per cent to 132,000 tonnes. This was achieved mainly through an increase in area of 7,000 hectares.