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The volume of sales through marts has held up in recent months despite trade having to contend with disruptions and more recently tightened restrictions.
Marts are “proving their meitheal and staying resilient” despite the “onerous restrictions” according to ICOS livestock executive Ray Doyle.
Just shy of 31,000 animals were traded through marts in the weekend just gone, figures from the Department of Agriculture show, despite four marts having to abandon sales due to a software issue. This is down marginally on last year when 36,000 animals were traded.
Sales
Doyle said: “Since the first lockdown, when effectively the sector was shut completely and only had a limited tendering system in place to facilitate trade, we are only back 9.6% overall year to date – at 1.275m cattle as opposed to 1.4m last year.”
A closer exanimation of recent months shows marts have had to make up for lost time with August sales up 43%, September up 20% and October up 6.7% up to 25 October.
ICOS has requested as speedy a return as possible of ringside attendance for buyers and sellers at marts, complimented by online sales.
Online only
Currently only online sales are permitted and Doyle said the resilience of the sector “must be commended as over 75% of mart centres have on line bidding in place”.
“The well-publicised technology problem of last Saturday showed that over 30,000 farmers are online with LSL (Livestock Live) and another 10,000 with the two other providers, showing that over 40,000 farmers are embracing the new technology and method of sales,” he said.
ICOS wanted to see as quick a return as possible to the blend of ringside attendance and online trade as much as anyone but stressed it was no its decision to make.
“We can, however, work with – and improve – what we already have in place and this is what we are doing while ensuring to communicate the real and present concerns of our sector to Government,” Doyle concluded.
Issues
A number of farm organisations have backed calls for buyers to be allowed back around rings.
The IFA has made a submission to the Department of Agriculture calling for a limited number of buyers to be allowed to return to mart rings.
IFA beef chair Brendan Golden called for a review of the restrictions to ensure sales proceed and the market functioned in an open and transparent way.
ICMSA president Pat McCormack called for up to 25 people to be allowed around the ring. He said there were a number of farmers “who just don’t have either the broadband or IT facilities” that had to be facilitated.
These comments were echoed by ICSA beef chair Edmund Graham who said thousands of farmers and agents were being excluded from the livestock auction process due to internet issues.
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