The suckler herd has endured a few tough years. Reducing supports has meant a lot of younger farmers questioning their future with sucklers, with many operators on better land in the midlands and east making the switch to dairying. Low profitability has also been a factor but more supports in recent years may have been enough to stem the flow of cows to the dry cow rings of marts around the country. There are some out there who think there will be a mass exodus out of suckling when BDGP ends.

Personally, I don’t think numbers will drop to a huge extent for two reasons:

  • While BDGP will end on 31 December, it looks like there will be a follow-on scheme after the current programme ends so nobody will be in a hurry to ditch the five-star cows just yet.
  • We have seen a really strong mart trade for autumn-born weanlings, especially for the top-quality weanlings. This has restored some confidence in the sector. Schemes such as BEEP-S and BEAM have also injected much needed funds into suckler farms. Schemes like these will be vital if we want to maintain our suckler herd.

    • Suckler registrations topped 1,103,769 in 2008. The fact that this was the first year of the Suckler Cow Welfare Scheme may have accelerated January registrations that year. Since then, numbers have been falling with the introduction of BDGP in 2015 having a steadying effect.

    Interestingly, Figure 1 shows that the rate of decline has steadied in recent years with the 12 months up to 30 June 2020 sitting at 861.634. In contrast to this, registrations of beef-sired calves from the dairy herd have seen rapid growth in the last 10 years coming from a low of 353,408 calves registered in 2011 to 707,540 in 2020, a doubling in 10 years. This presents challenges for our sector as more and more beef originates from the dairy herd.

    Figure 2 shows the increase in the dairy cow population versus the decline in suckler cows, a trend that is likely to continue albeit at a slower pace than some might have thought. Figure 3 outlines the trend in suckler replacements and where they come from. A criticism of BDGP was that farmers were forced to look to the dairy herd to source replacements.

    Figure 3 outlines that the proportion of replacements coming into the suckler herd from the dairy herd has been declining since 2017/2018 and that the replacement rate for the suckler herd is actually up 1.5% in 2020.

    There is no doubt that our suckler herd will decline in numbers. Will it go to 600,000 cows as some commentators have called it? I don’t think so.

    Supports, Brexit and farm profitability are the big three when it comes to deciding the future.

    Alternative farming systems in many areas aren’t that plentiful and if we want to be at the top in terms of being the world’s best at producing environmentally sustainable, grass-fed, low carbon footprint, tasty beef, then the suckler cow could be an important asset that we shouldn’t forget about.