On the final episode of the Beef Edge podcast for 2021, Teagasc Head of Drystock, Pearse Kelly, joins Catherine Egan to look back on the year gone by and to discuss what is expected in the New Year and the outlook for 2022.

In many ways, 2021 was a good year on cattle farms and Pearse outlines how beef prices began to rise in the spring and, like the tide that rises all ships, weanling and store prices followed and have remained buoyant.

The recent Teagasc outlook and review webinar showed that steers, weanling and store prices all increased. Steer beef prices rose by 12% in 2021 which also resulted in higher weanling and store prices.

In order to generate output you require inputs and they too have increased on average across all the cattle systems by about 8% in 2021. Pearse highlights that while predictions suggest we may see some increase in cattle supply in 2022, it will be only marginal and is likely to come on stream in the second half of the year.

Looking forward to the year ahead Pearse says that the Future Beef Programme and Dairy Beef 500 Programme will be the main flagship programmes in the New Year with farm walks expected on some of the farms in early 2022. Pearse also hopes - Covid allowing – that there will be a ‘Beef 2022’open day in Teagasc Grange in July.

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

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