Beef price cut angers farmers

Marts: The anger of beef producers intensified after a number of factories inflicted a further cut in beef prices yesterday following indications of a reversal of the drop in supplies over the past two weeks.

While the factories continued their silence on quoting for cattle yesterday, some held the price at last week’s rate of 88p-83p/lb for R/O grade cattle, but indicated that they may review the price for today.

Most of the processors maintained that they were “getting plenty of cattle” at the lower price of 87p-82p/lb for R/O grades, a drop of 3 cents/kg (1p/lb) for underage cattle. More factories are penalising producers for cattle over 30 months with a cut of 3-9 cents/kg (1p-3p/lb).