Bad autumn ahead for suckled calf producers

By FW staff

SUCKLED calf sellers are bracing themselves for an autumn of misery, with buyers likely to be more cautious than ever before.

“There still is not an awareness of how bad it is going to be,” says Scott Donaldson, auctioneer at Wooler, Northumberland.

The weaker demand for store lambs this summer will be repeated at suckled calf sales, he says. Not only have beef finishers lost money for a number of years but there is also less grain money around to spend. “People are not in a position to gamble and the banks wont let them anyway.”

Meanwhile, there is little prospective sellers can do to mitigate the downturn. A few, with the space and food, will take stock through to slaughter, says Mr Donaldson. “But those that are selling should not do any thing different to usual. You have to make the best of them – because poor, weathered calves will be even more difficult to sell.”

Buyers will be in a cautious mood at this autumns suckled calf sales

The traditional feeders will still be buying this autumn, reckons Timothy Garratt at Chagford, Devon. “But the dealing people who buy to trade on will want much bigger margins because they will be afraid they wont be able to unload all of the cattle.” He, too, thinks many vendors are in a no-win situation.

NFU livestock committee secretary Kevin Pearce says that any progress with the date-based export scheme will give a boost to trade. “It would be a very positive signal – because a lot of these suckled calves would qualify.

“They are the very animals that could go out and fill the beef markets that we had before the ban was imposed.”