By David MacKenzie Contributing Editor
As we start 2025, United Kingdom carcass prices have hit an all-time record high, making an 800-pound carcass currently worth $2,670, an increase from $2,164 in August 2024. While this has seen big margins returned to the feedyards and record prices at cattle auctions for feeder cattle, industry and cow-calf numbers are still reducing. Why is this? Is a generation coming away from rearing beef?
I have never known anything else but livestock farming. I have a full-time role as the ruminant director in a nutritional business that I have been a part of for more than 25 years. At the same time, my wife, family and I have been raising feeder cattle and producing seedstock Charolais bulls. I know nothing else and honestly can’t imaging not being involved in beef production. I’m deeply privileged to be involved in my small way. The truth is, we all have to face facts that here in the UK and other parts of the world, the beef industry is condensing, and fewer people see their future following their forefathers’ path. I was told a long time ago, “Don’t let success go to your head or failure to your heart.” Anyone raising beef cattle has had their resolve tested. it happens daily. If your heart’s not in this industry, it will make you find that exit.
In post-WWII UK and wider Europe, food security and increasing food production were clear government policy and economic focus. New production methods allowed food production to dramatically increase, with livestock numbers peaking in the late 1970s. The gradual removal of quotas and decoupling of direct subsidy support alongside major disease challenges set livestock numbers on the decline.
I really feel there is a strong future for beef farming as we have a population who still enjoys and wants to eat beef.
I don’t think there is one reason for the decline, which has seen my own region of Scotland losing 24 percent of its breeding female numbers over the past 20 years, dropping from 520,000 to 394,000 breeding beef females. Are people turning away because they just can’t generate enough income to build a future for the next generation to follow on in the business? I would certainly see a lack of succession as a major reason coupled with the fact that it is nearly impossible for first-time farmers to get a start. It isn’t a policy of our main financial institutions to get their shoulder behind and support new entrants. Without another income or unless they can provide considerable equity upfront, they just won’t get backed to start. Recent farmer-led protests about the new Labour Government’s introduction of a 20 percent inheritance tax on all agricultural assets worth over £1 million starting in 2026 is certainly another new challenge that won’t help the industry at all.
There has also been a distinct lack of government policy on food production and financial support with, especially in England in recent years, with subsidies being weighted on providing environmental benefits. All of this is coupled with tighter regulation and the unfair demonization of beef production from an environmental angle has been a real and constant attack.
Every business and industry has their challenges and farming isn’t alone. The variation in performance in the cow-calf sector is vast and one that is certainly seeing uneconomical and inefficient animals in the system. I feel the only way to overcome an issue is for everyone to agree that it is a problem first and how serious we all need to be in overcoming it. The variation between farms and within farms is vast in the UK and certainly one that is within our own control.
I really feel there is a strong future for beef farming as we have a population who still enjoys and wants to eat beef. It is therefore vital that we must collectively make sure that it is not seen as a guilty pleasure, but the cornerstone of a healthy and nutritious eating experience. With the correct mindset and infrastructure in place, a rightful place in feeding our nation with a new level of asset value, we have the right platform to develop our industry.
