10 mart highlights and low points in 2020
Those were the days! Packed to the rafters at a 2018 Cork Marts, Skibbereen fatstock show.
it was an extraordinary, and revolutionary year for cattle marts.
Here’s just ten highlights and low points.
I’m not sure what legendary cattle auctioneers like Jack McGraw or legendary cattlemen like Jack Desmond would make of the new 2020 world of cattle trading.
If they came back to witness empty sales rings and cattle auctioneers seemingly talking to themselves, would they say we have gone completely bananas?
And would they be right?
In 2020, you could leave your bidding finger at home.
And far better if you stayed at home yourself too.
With Covid-19, you were as welcome in the mart as a fart in a space suit.
Marts in 2020 were all about online buying and selling.
Never has it been more important to have a good phone on your person, and a good broadband connection.
For years we have been promised broadband, in 2020 it was out to the test.
In Aghabullogue, my brother informed me that it was hit and miss.
A man in Drinagh told me that he could only get coverage when not in Drinagh.
As for Kenmare, their mart manager Dan McCarthy said it all in October, remarking that online connectivity is “a total fiasco, a total disaster.”
In spite of a sinking feeling whenever Wuhan or bats were mentioned, price trends were the calmest in years.
From the calf to the finished animal, from January to December, online or offline, the mart trade was steady.
Mind you, I’m not sure if we are becalmed at the bottom or top of a price curve.
Their arrival and departure so quickly in 2020 took our minds off trying to buy cattle on screens about the size of a matchbox.
First, Minster Creed bowed out.
I thought he would remain minister for the rest of his life.
Next came two more Ministers for Agriculture.
Their names escape me now, they didn’t hang around long enough for me to remember.
Now we have Charlie McConalogue, who seems to be doing a good job, at least he is still there.
Covid hit home for me when I heard the annual Gigginstown Easter Bull Sale would not take place.
I enjoyed driving the million or so miles from my ramshackle ranch in Kilmichael to the glorious plains of Westmeath, and the bull sale held on the Michael O’Leary-owned estate.
It was my annual opportunity to see how the other half lives, and it only cost the price of a tank of diesel, to view pedigree stock and nod my head in approval when a good bull saunterered into the ring.
Always happiest when seated at a dining table, it was a very sad day for me when marts closed their restaurant doors.
Having sampled beef and turkey sandwiches, tea, coffee, buns, cake and jelly in Bandon, Skibbereen, Kanturk, Kilmallock, Dungarvan, Gortatlea, Corrin, Castleisland and Kilkenny, I found the mart restaurant closure almost harder than the mart closure.
Love them or hate them, we cannot ignore them, at least not in 2020.
The family.
Many of us discovered new and interesting things about our nearest and dearest.
For me it was that my youngest, Emma (aged 10) loves to farm.
She’s the first on with the wellingtons, and last to complain where farming is involved.
I may have a future cattle dealer on my hands.
Cometh the hour, cometh the cattle dealer.
For years, the dealer may have been dealt a poor hand with regards to respect within our industry, but in 2020 he or she held all the aces.
With cattle marts closed one minute, open the next, and then neither open nor closed, it was down to the cattle dealer to help us out of the muddle.
And they did, by supplying cattle to fellows who were too fearful of using a phone to purchase.
And for farmers wanting to sell, they were equally as helpful.
And with the ability to tell the weight of an animal by eye alone and with the ability to pay for cattle with cash alone, they became as popular as Dr Tony was in the early days.
We now finally see the important role that they can play in keeping the gears of our business in motion. The dealer is back.
I will be the first to confess that my vision isn’t what it used to be.
I can still spot a farm inspector before he enters the yard, but beyond that it can have me at a loss.
So the likes of me had no business trying to purchase cattle on a mobile phone, where even the sharpest eyes, I’m sure, were caught out by bullocks with one testicle that looked like they had none.
There is nothing like inspecting an animal in the flesh.
Exporters did their best in a tough year sending calves to sunny Spain and weanlings to Turkey.
But we must never forget the farmer, who keeps the show going in every direction, as a seller and a buyer.
The farmer’s hand I used to see in marts before Covid, bidding for cattle large and small is still there, only now behind a phone screen.
And so as we brace ourselves for 2021, give yourself a pat on the back, not only do you deserve it, but it’s long overdue.
