One of the issues that has had farmers protesting at the factory gates is the belief that they are getting ripped off by the rest of the chain after an animal leaves the trailer at the lairage.
Up to the point when the animal is slaughtered, there is full transparency on weight, grade and price paid for cattle across the EU and it is published weekly on the EU website and reproduced in the Irish Farmers Journal.
But the next time there is visibility on the price of beef or lamb is when it appears on the supermarket shelf, the burger chain or on a restaurant menu. Who gets what in between simply isn’t known.
US model
It need not be like this. The USA, which has some of the biggest and most successful beef processors in the world, has a reporting service on boxed beef sales updated daily.
In addition, the offal and hide contribution to the value of the animal that is received by factories is also updated on a daily basis.
For example, at 10.30am on Friday morning, I can see that the value of offal and hide was $9.18 per hundred weight (cwt) live (€8.32 per 50.8kg), which makes the overall value of a typical US steer of 1,400lb liveweight (635kg) $128.52 (€116.52).
Multitude of cuts
The daily report covers a multitude of beef cuts and reports the number of transactions, the volume of each cut sold and the price range that they were sold at, with a weighted average added.
Therefore, anyone who wants to can see what the trends are on each cut of beef on a daily basis.
A weekly report is also produced, which, for practical purposes, is what most people would be interested in; similar to the weekly price reporting service in the EU for cattle.
The number and volume of transactions, as well as price, reflect the strength of the market, as lower volumes traded suggest a build-up of stocks.
Could it work in Ireland?
There is a view that too much information actually weakens the negotiation when selling.
Farmers sometimes bemoan the fact that factories know the numbers and age of cattle in the system and when they will likely come on the market, so they (factories) can price them accordingly.
It can also be argued that the retail, food service and wholesale buyers of beef could use information on sales to make offers or bids for product.
Improve confidence but not price
These are valid arguments, but, on the other hand, farmer confidence in beef factories is low and more information on what happens can only improve this confidence.
Ultimately, a necessary relationship has to exist between farmers and factories to have an industry.
Additionally, some of the most successful meat-processing companies in the world are in the USA and they also publish annual accounts that allows suppliers and customers see their profitability.
If Ireland was to move to the US model or a variation of it, as it need not be as comprehensive or frequent, it would increase confidence. However, what it wouldn’t do is address the most fundamental problem at present, the price of beef.
As the editorial of this week’s Irish Farmers Journal highlighted, this isn’t something that the market will do alone in light of the amount of direct support that has been lost over the past decade.