Beef cattle prices in Scotland had slipped back a little

Tag : Beef Meat
The increased cost of feed, fertiliser and fuel means beef farmersare losing almost ?100 a head on every finished animal, accordingto latest costings from <a href="http://www.sac.ac.uk/">theScottish _fcksavedurl=""http://www.sac.ac.uk/">theScottish" Agricultural C</a>ollege.
That was despite higher prices for beef cattle, said SAC beefspecialist Ian Pritchard. He said the costings were based onfigures supplied by the 16 farmers in the <ahref="http://www.qmscotland.co.uk/">Quality MeatScotland</a>-sponsored North East Focus on Finishing Group,who between them finished more than 15,000 cattle a year. "Manybeef farmers are not aware of how much money they are losing. Thefinishing group has been established to monitor the financialperformance of beef units and the figures will be presented tosupermarkets to help them understand the economic pressures farmersare under."
Mr Pritchard said the top third of beef finishers needed 308p/kgdeadweight to cover increased costs and achieve a modest margin of5%. Beef cattle prices in Scotland peaked at 285p/kg two weeks ago,but had slipped back 5p/kg a week since then to 275p/kg.