Farmers are getting very concerned about the prospects for the beef trade in 2016.

It is widely anticipated that cattle will be plentiful in the autumn due to lower live exports and higher births in 2014 and 2015.

This suggests that price will come under pressure towards the end of the year.

However, the biggest cause of frustration at the moment is linked to factory-imposed specifications on weight and the 30 months limit and a more general sense that the price grid is no longer fit for purpose.

Cattle prices have remained static at around €3.90/kg throughout the full winter period which is causing many farmers to seriously reappraise the economics of winter finishing.

Nonetheless, the issue which is causing the most concern at present is the imposition of weight limits for prime beef.

Farmers are subject to severe penalties of up to 20c/kg for steers over 420kg deadweight. Consequently farmers are under pressure to dump high-quality cattle before they reach full profit potential.

The problem is that the entire suckler business is built around heavy, quality continental breed cattle that grow into big carcasses. It is easy to say these cattle should be killed at lighter weights but in some cases, the cattle will not have adequate fat cover at the lighter weight.

Moreover, many suckler farmers sell their animals at weanling stage. These farmers need a sufficient price to cover the high cost of keeping a cow and make a margin whereas the farmer buying also needs to make a living.

In practice, the heavier weanling making over a €1,000 needs to be fed into a decent weight to make a profit for the finisher.

The theory that was meant to underpin the logic of the price grid which determines the price farmers get for their livestock that the better conformation, leaner carcasses would be rewarded.

In turn, farmers with O grade carcasses or worse were to be penalised.

ICSA has called for an immediate review of the beef grid on the basis that the grid is now no longer achieving its intended purpose of rewarding top conformation cattle at the expense of lower grade cattle.

Due to weight limits, the grid is no longer fit for purpose. An ICSA analysis of the average weights for steers in 2015 demonstrates that weight limits predominantly hits the better U and E grade cattle.

Instead of U grade cattle getting a bonus as was the intended purpose of the grid when it was introduced, these cattle are now falling foul of weight limits and ending up with less rather than more of the base price.

Table A shows that the average weights for all acceptable fat score categories (2+ to 4=) of U+ cattle and the vast majority of U= and U- categories are above the 420kg maximum weight being applied by most factories. The range of weights here is 422-468 kgs. For the small number of E grade cattle, average weights are higher still.

However, the issue around U grades is significant. When the grid was introduced, U grade or better made up around 7% of the total steer kill; in 2015 U grades or better accounted for 11.8% of the steer kill.

Because these cattle are now deemed too heavy, farmers will be deprived of the bonuses that would have been legitimately expected when the cattle were bought and especially when they were bred.

The issue now points to a more fundamental one: wither the suckler herd based on many years of continental breeding? Is the meat industry sending a signal that it’s time to forget about keeping suckler cows? Or is it that they just don’t want sucklers breeding export grade weanlings?

From a beef finisher’s point of view, the grid cannot continue in its present format because farmers are losing every which way. We cannot tolerate a grid which imposes penalties on almost every category of animal.

We always knew that there was a problem with under-fleshed or over fat cattle and that was accepted in good faith by farmers. Farmers also tolerated penalties on lower conformation cattle even though we are now told that these are exactly what the market wants.

We were told that better conformation cattle had higher proportions of high value cuts; therefore they got a bonus to balance the penalties for other cattle.

Now we are told that these cattle are too heavy so they are to be penalised too. This imbalance is not unacceptable and therefore the grid must be suspended to allow negotiations on a new grid.

Table A shows that the average weights for all acceptable fat score categories (2+ to 4=) of U+ cattle and the vast majority of U= and U- categories are above the 420kg maximum weight