Livestock Council Report May 2026

Market Report 

• Beef Price: Steers are making from €6.60kg to €6.80/kg. Heifers are making €6.70/kg to €6.90/kg with higher deals for larger lots and increased off season breed bonuses paid. Young Bulls are ranging from €6.80kg to €7.00/kg for R/U grades. Cows are making €6.10kg to €6.70/kg. 

• DAFM Reported Prices week ending 25/01//2025: R3 steer prices for the latest week are unchanged at €6.97/kg, R3 heifer price decreased by 2c/kg to €7.03/kg. R3 young bull prices increased by 3c/kg to €6.87/kg. O3 grading cows are unchanged at €6.16/kg, R3 grading cows are back 5c/kg to €6.51/kg. 

• Composite prices: The latest Irish prime composite cattle price and the prime Export Benchmark on April 11^th 2026 were equivalent to €6.65kg and €7.19/kg deadweight respectfully.  

Supply Figures as Reported by DAFM – WK 16 (19.04.2026)
Animal	Number	Change prev wk	% of total	YTD	YTD Change
Y Bulls	1,391	▲38	4%	39,639	▲296
Bull	554	▲12	2%	6,494	▼-766
Steer	12,963	▲858	41%	181,152	▼-26,210
Cow	6,768	▲254	22%	104,452	▼-25,679
Heifer	9,741	▼-257	31%	159,614	▼-27,350
Veal-V	36	▲0	0%	341	▼-1,928
Veal-Z	21	▼-13	0%	1,778	▲544
Total	31,474	▲892	100%	493,470	▼-81,093

• Supplies:  Total throughput to date in 2026 stands at 493,470 head, back 81,093 head from the corresponding week in 2025.  

Market Conditions:  

• Cattle prices have steadied over the past number of weeks following downward pressure in early spring. Current prices are stable with some signs of strengthening due to stronger demand in our key export outlets and tighter finished cattle supplies. Prices in GB for R3 steers is £6.37p/kg. R3 Heifers price is £6.36/kg for week ending April 18^th, 2026. EU young bull price currently stands at €6.25c/kg. UK beef production declined by 3.5% in 2025 and is forecasted to fall to similar levels in 2026. EU Beef production fell by 4.2% in 2025 and is forecasted to fall by up to 3% in 2026.  

• Live Exports: Live cattle exports started very slow this year with weather delays to sailings impacting calf exports. Ongoing animal health challenges, including bluetongue restrictions have disrupted trade flows in the earlier part of spring. For week ending April 11^th 11,391 weanlings have been exported back 33% on 2025 figures. Store cattle exports are back 31% to 7,076 head and finished cattle are also back 36% or 12,073. 95,504 calves have been exported to date which represents a 17% decline on 2025 figures to date. 

Budget 2027 

• There must be no linear cuts to payments under the National Beef Welfare scheme or the National Dairy Beef weighing scheme in 2026. Any additional funding required to ensure farmers are paid in full for actions undertaken in 2025 must be provided in full by the exchequer. Farmers who have delivered on scheme requirements cannot be expected to absorb funding shortfalls. 

Suckler Cow Supports 

• Direct supports for suckler farmers must be increased to a minimum of €300/cow to ensure economic viability, long term sustainability and generation renewal within the sector. This is essential to maintain the sectors positive contribution to climate targets and its role in supporting the socio-economic, environmental and biodiversity of rural Ireland. The current National exchequer scheme which provides €75/cow for up to 45 cows must be extended to 2027 with funding increased to deliver €300/cow in combination with SCEP. The scheme must be available for all suckler cows on the farm and eligibility criteria must ensure there is no leakage of this funding from suckler farms. 

Beef Calf from Dairy herds Rearing Scheme 

• There must be a Dairy Beef Calf Welfare Scheme that provides meaningful incentives for farmers to rear calves from the dairy herd. The scheme must reflect the costs, labour and standards required to maximise performance and viability of this livestock production system. Farmers who follow best practice in this area and who focus on rearing high commercial beef value (CBV) calves should be supported with a payment of €100 per calf for the rearing phase of these animals. 

Beef Sustainability Scheme 

• Farmers feeding animals for the second year of beef production will be required to play a pivotal role in achieving the climate target ambition for the sector. The sector is a low-income vulnerable sector that has had a significant reduction in CAP direct payments. Capacity and resources are not available on these farms to deliver the changes required to achieve the climate ambition for the sector. Farmers rearing and finishing weanling and store cattle born in suckler and dairy herds must be directly supported for this phase of the process with a minimum of €100/animal to support measures that maximise the performance of these animals. Young Bull finishers have the potential to positively impact on the average age of slaughter of all prime cattle and must be supported in addition to the €100 payment reflecting this high-cost specialist production system. 

Straw Incorporation Scheme for livestock and Sheep farmers 

• Livestock farmers who utilise straw for the bedding of cattle and sheep are providing optimum animal welfare conditions in the management of their animals over the winter months at, in the majority of cases, an extremely high cost. The majority of suckler and sheep farmers are small scale farm enterprise’s situated long distances from the area’s tillage crops are grown in the country and where straw is most available. Transport costs for these farmers regularly exceeds the actual cost of the straw. To support these farm enterprise’s and support optimum animal management practices. on these farms, cattle and sheep farmers purchasingstraw for animal bedding should be directly supported for this action also recognising the environmental benefits of this practise. The benefits of incorporating straw into soils is recognised in the CAP Strategic Plans and tillage farmers are rightly supported for this action. The level of supports provided to tillage farmers in the SIM scheme should be provided in a separate national scheme with new funding to livestock and sheep farmers who utilise the straw for bedding their animals and then incorporate it back into the soil on their farms. 

Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme 

• A funding allocation of €52m was provided for the SCEP scheme in 2023 with a payment of €150 per suckler cow available on the first 22 cows and €120/cow on the remainder. 

• 15,800 farmers are currently participating in the scheme with an average reference number of 25 cows. There are currently 435,000 cows eligible for payment. 

• Payments for the scheme were issued to farmers in December 2025. 

National Beef Welfare scheme 2026 

• IFA has secured €28m towards the National Beef Welfare Scheme for 2026. 

• IFA raised concerns on the proposed maximum number of eligible animals per farm. IFA has sought the removal of the upper limit on numbers of animals eligible within a herd.  

• The maximum payable number of cows in this scheme is 45. 

• The scheme actions include;  

• Action 1 – Meal Feeding: €35 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves.  

• Action 2 – Vaccination: €15 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves. 

• Action 3 – Faecal egg testing and 3 silage samples or 2 faecal egg tests €25 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves. 

• The scheme is proposed to open for applications in late Q3 2026. 

• 100% payments will be made in December 2026. 

Dairy calf beef scheme 2026 

• IFA secured €4m in funding for a dairy calf beef scheme for 2026. 

• The scheme is open for applications with the closing date to submit applications on May 15^th 2026. 

• The scheme will pay farmers €20/calf up to a maximum 50 calves. 

• 100% payments will issue to participants in December 2026. 

• The scheme will only consist of one action, which will involve weighing the calf and uploading the weights to ICBF by November 1st 2026. 

• IFA raised concerns on the maximum number of 50 eligible calves which should be reviewed. Some farmers specialising in rearing diary beef calves have made significant investments to rear large numbers of calves. All farmers rearing dairy beef calves should be eligible for the full support payment on all the calves they rear. 

• IFA engaged directly with the Minister and DAFM officials to demand a reversal of the linear cuts applied to the 2025 scheme, strongly outlining the impact it will impose on calf rearing farms. 

• IFA will maintain pressure on the Minister to ensure that the linear cuts imposed in 2025 are not applied to the 2026 scheme and that full restoration of payments is delivered. 

EUDR (EU Deforestation Regulation)  

• IFA has been engaging with the relevant bodies and has strongly pushed for changes to simplify the regulation for farmers. 

• IFA has sought a simplified requirement at EU level for effectively non risk countries. 

• The EU commission has come forward with amended proposed targeted adjustments to the regulation to ensure a smooth implementation of the EU Deforestation regulation aiming to make its IT system fully operational while simplifying obligations for small operators.  

• The proposals aim to reduce reporting requirements by limiting due diligence submissions to the first market entry point meaning traders and manufacturers will no longer need to file separate statements.  

• Micro and small operators from low-risk countries would only need to make a simple one-off declaration further easing the burden. 

EU/COPA developments 

• IFA attended the COPA working party meeting on Breeding livestock in March. 

• IFA attended the Civil Dialogue Group on beef in March. 

• IFA attended the COPA working party meeting on Beef and Veal in March. 

• IFA Livestock Chair Declan Hanrahan was elected Vice-Chair of the COPA working party on beef.