Cattle exporters will fill three livestock boats with over 7,000 bulls in the coming days and buying is continuing for boats in January. This is providing a support to the mart trade.

Cork firm Curzon loaded a consignment of up to 3,000 head on Wednesday and the boat was to depart for Libya early on Thursday morning.

Co Meath-based Viastar has a boat arriving at the weekend to be loaded with weanling bulls for Turkey. Purcell Brothers has a boat arriving at the end of next week to be loaded with 2,500 bulls for Libya.

These will be mostly lighter Friesians for further feeding with some heavier beef breed bulls. These deliveries will bring exports to Libya to around 13,000 head for 2019 and exports to Turkey to over 10,000 head.

Meanwhile, Curzon Livestock will now begin buying stock for its next order for Libya, which is due to be loaded in the first week of January. It will consist of Friesian bulls of 300kg and Friesian bulls of 500kg.

The other exporters hope for further orders from Libya and Turkey.

While the Turkish authorities have suspended issuing new import permits, that is to be reviewed next month.

The ongoing strong exports to Libya and Turkey follow buoyant exports to EU markets in the first half of the year.

Figures

Department of Agriculture figures show that by 1 December 2019 live cattle exports had reached 285,883 head. By the end of the month, exports will come close to 300,000 head, the highest in nearly a decade.

About 90% of these exports have been calves and weanlings going to other EU member states.

The top destination has been Spain, with 88,345 head exported from Ireland up to last weekend. Next was the Netherlands at 84,092 head, Northern Ireland at 30,643 head and Italy at 29,221 head. There will be further exports to these markets before year-end.