Despite local Aberdeen Angus schemes in NI offering various bonuses mainly between 20 and 30p/kg for prime steers and heifers, the actual advantage over other cattle is around the 13p/kg mark, analysis by the Irish Farmers Journal shows.

It is a long-running frustration for farmers finishing traditional breeds that their bonuses are paid on top of starting quotes offered by factories.

What factories quote for cattle and what they actually pay, are two different things.

In practice, regular suppliers of any cattle to factories are in a strong position to negotiate on price and the end result is that the bonuses paid for traditional breeds are not as far ahead of conventional cattle as it might initially seem.

Dataset

The data analysed was obtained from the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) over the first 30 weeks of 2024, to the end of July. Average weekly weight and price paid for R3 grading steers, heifers and young bulls was included in the dataset across the three main beef breeds of Angus, Charolais and Limousin.

As shown in Table 1, Angus heifers were paid between 13.1p and 13.9p/kg more than Charolais and Limousin sired animals.

It is a similar scenario for the steers (Table 2), with the price differential sitting at between 13.1p and 13.6p/kg.

Most Angus schemes do not pay a bonus for young bulls and this is reflected in the average price per kg, which is similar to the other breeds (Table 3).

Lowest

Despite receiving higher prices per kg, the Angus cattle in our analysis realised the least per head across all three categories of stock, due to having the lowest weights at slaughter.

It is fair to point out that the Angus (and to a lesser extent, Limousin) cattle are more likely to be out of dairy cows, so won’t have the genetic ability to reach the weight of a Charolais out of a suckler.

However, by limiting our analysis to R3 grades, it is probable that the majority of the cattle analysed originated from the suckler herd.