'Work together' to ensure supplies of British beef.

Byline: Karen Dent

RETAILERS and processors must work together to encourage breeders to produce more cattle, according to the National Beef Association (NBA).

It is encouraging action to meet the shortfall and says unless the various groups work together to make it financially attractive for suckler calf breeders and dairy calf rearers to increase their output, slaughter cattle numbers will continue to shrink after 2014.

The warning comes a day after the English Beef and Lamb Executive (Eblex) said that the higher number of heifer slaughterings seen in the first half of the year was set to continue, putting greater pressure on the country's breeding herd.

NBA director Kim Haywood said that the whole supply chain must work together to ensure the drop in numbers is reversed and that sufficient British beef is available in five years' time.

She said: "It is impossible to improve production levels this year, or next, because the cows that would have produced the cattle that should be coming forward are long-since dead.

"Additional supply falls are in train for 2012 and 2013 as well, because of this year's, and next year's, 2.5% drop in suckler cow numbers and the ongoing 2.7% fall in the dairy cow herd too.

"While on top of this a further 7% reduction in total UK production can be expected over 2010 because of the net loss of around 175,000 dairy cross beef cattle born between April 2008 and March 2009.

"The impact of the contracting national cow herd can only be reversed if farmers are made to feel confident they will earn more from cows that produce calves than they do from selling potential breeders into the manufacturing beef market."

The dramatic recovery in prices for prime cattle and barren cows seen this week in the South of England prove that the main factor shaping the market is short supplies, she added.

Prime deadweight prices have increased by around 10p/kilo in the South and are expected to rise by 5p to 8p elsewhere.

Ms Haywood said that the increases were proof that the price cuts that came into play at the start of July were unjustified.

"The pounds 60 [18.5p per dwkg] a head drop in sales income from Southern England's prime cattle and the pounds 136 a head [40p per dwkg] national fall in barren cow values recorded over the past five weeks is now being shown to have been hugely overcooked," she said.

"It was justified by confident processor assertions that farm supply had dramatically exceeded retail demand for beef.

"But an almost unprecedented, overnight, 10p upward adjustment is more than a correction.

"It is an admission that a serious miscalculation was made and that abattoir stocks are threadbare."

CAPTION(S):

CAUSE FOR CONCERN The NBA's director Kim Haywood.