First-half slaughtering up 13%

First-half slaughtering at the beef export plants for 2006 showed a rise of 13% with supplies up on previous years.

An extra 96,000 head went through the country’s factories between January and the end of June pushing throughput to 817,067 head.

Strong market demand for beef, benefiting from the restrictions on imports to EU from Brazil and Argentine, ensured the higher supply of cattle did not effect prices paid to producers which averaged 3% higher than the same period in 2005 for bullocks and heifers, while cow prices were 8% higher than in 2005.