Mark Zieg, Meat Division, Bord Bia

A  recent Outlook Report from the AHDB has projected marginally higher beef production in the UK this year, with black and white male dairy calves helping to boost numbers.  With an underlying trend of a 2.7% decline in the beef and dairy cow herds, experts had previously forecast a drop in the numbers of cattle processed in 2009. However the latest July to September period has seen numbers of prime cattle processed increase by 1% to 488,000 head. The main contributing factor in stabilising numbers was a 4% increase in both heifer and young bull throughput. 

For the year as a whole prime cattle throughput is now forecast to reach 2.05 million head compared to a figure of 2.028 million head in 2008. More dairy bred males have been retained on farms in the last 18 months and these animals have now started to enter the food chain, boosting numbers in the last quarter of 2009. This has seen the auction price for black and white male dairy calves double over year earlier levels to £49 per head.

In 2008, the export market to Holland for British calves was lost following positive TB tests on some British calves. Since then the abattoirs have identified these calves as an opportunity to compensate for the drop in prime cattle numbers.  In 2010, the AHDB forecast broadly similar overall production number for prime cattle as male dairy bred calves continue to compensate for lower numbers of steers and heifers.