Beef Forum: Teagasc to review economic model that builds beef indexes

It’s been a busy two weeks in beef breeding circles, with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) and breed societies locked in battle over the accuracy of calving indexes and both the terminal and replacement beef indexes.

A number of breed societies have in the last two weeks opted to remove genetic index data from their official sales catalogues in protest over what they say is inaccurate information.

The move has received a mixed reaction - applause from some of their members and commercial farmers, while other breeders and farmers felt the decision was made without consulting members and could cause issues with farmers.

It all came to a head at Friday’s Beef Stakeholder Forum meeting, which took place in Tullamore.

Sparks

Sparks flew before the meeting even started, with some debate as to whether Peadar Glennon, secretary of the Irish Simmental Cattle Society, would be allowed to stay in the meeting.

Each breed society was allowed two people in the meeting to represent their respective breeds. Some thought Peadar Glennon constituted a third, while others maintained he was there in his capacity as a representative of all breed societies through his position on the board of the ICBF.

A resolution was found where he was allowed stay on as an observer with no speaking rights, but I’m told he got a few words in along the way. This set the tone for a tense and fraught four-and-a-half-hour meeting.

Contributions

A number of breed societies, farm organisations and State bodies such as Teagasc all attended, with each group getting two minutes at the start of the meeting to outline their position.

The stakeholder group has come in for some severe criticism from breed societies, in particular in relation to a lack of minutes being taken at previous meetings or defined actions circulated to members of the group.

This appears to have been resolved at Friday’s meeting, with the ICBF agreeing to take notes at each meeting and circulate minutes and actions after each meeting.

There was also a lot of discussion around the Teagasc economic model, with Paul Crosson from Teagasc, the architect of the Grange beef model that drives the index, acknowledging that it was a lot more difficult on the beef side of the house to represent all the different beef systems in a model.

A farmer producing U-grade weanlings has different targets in terms of the genetics they use compared with a farmer trying to finish heifers off grass at 18 months. It’s a lot easier on the dairy side where one product, milk, is produced.

Review

Teagasc gave an undertaking that it would review the model, which will also involve an exercise where the economic values will be updated to better reflect where the current beef market is at.

This process will take a number of months and should be ready for roll-out in summer 2025.

For now, breed societies remain resolute in their stance on not printing indexes in their catalogues and, at the moment, that doesn’t look like changing in the near future.

It was hoped that a resolution would be found on Friday, but speaking to people at the meeting, it barely come up for discussion.