Store cattle prices stay strong despite the Irish invasion

BEEF producers looking in the proverbial crystal ball to find the profitability or otherwise of their sector have been told that 2010 prices will be heavily influenced by the Irish trade.

From being one of the so-called "tiger economies", Ireland has lapsed into a deep recession and its once buoyant agriculture has collapsed along with other businesses.

Store cattle in Ireland are worth about 250p a kilogram, while the comparable figure in Scotland is some 40p above that. The result is that floatloads of Irish store cattle are now coming over to Scotland on the ferry daily.

Despite this inward flow, one of the biggest finishers of cattle in Scotland, Jim Brown, Gaindykehead, Airdrie, said yesterday that the price of store cattle was still very strong. He reckoned that some purchasers of store cattle had not worked out their sums when they were buying.

Also speaking in Edinburgh at the annual meeting of the Scottish Beef Cattle Association, Kev Bevan, beef specialist with the Scottish Agricultural College, predicted that Scottish producers would face increasing competition for these cattle from English producers flush with money from their version of the single farm payment.

The problem for beef producers north and south of the Border comes months after periods when store cattle were pricey. Then the question is whether they can get the return when the beast goes off to market.

Bevan described the end price as being "flaky" and predicted any significant lift was unlikely on account of the countrywide recession. He produced figures showing that the major retailers had actually cut their margins to protect the end price of beef but pointed out that with competing meats such as pigmeat and poultry, this might be a short-term position. Consumers in the UK now eat more poultry meat than any other country in the European Union and supermarket prices for white meat were very competitive.

Bevan also said that cattle producers in this country should expect a resumption of beef coming in from Brazil, even if they could discount beef from the Argentine as a threat in the short term.

Later, at the annual meeting of the SBCA it was revealed that an approach had been made last year to the other beef lobbying organisation, the National Beef Association to conjoin their forces and membership but that no response had been received. According to John Cameron, this door towards a single Scottish beef lobbying organisation was still open.

In his chairman's report, John Bell indicated his concern that much of the current profitability in the industry was due to the weakness of sterling against the euro. A shift the other way could take quite an edge off current prices.

Bell also said it was wrong that the beef industry was still paying the cost of BSE testing in abattoirs long after the disease had become history. A recently announced consultation on the issue completely missed the point as far as he was concerned.