By Kayley Kennedy

k.kennedy@thesf.co.uk

THERE has been a significant increase in animal feed production in October 2017 compared to the same month in 2016, with more wheat and barley used to produce animal feed in the same period.

The latest statistics released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs indicate the largest increase was in the production of sheep feed, which increased by 18.3% to 41,000t, but the bulk of this was for finishing sheep which witnessed a 25.4% increase on the year while compounds for breeding sheep were back 33.3%. This takes to year-to-date (from July to October, 2017) sheep feed production to 143,000t, a rise of 24.3% on the same period in 2016.

As for overall cattle and calf feed, the total for the month of October was 361,000t, a rise of 9.2% compared to 2016 with this spread fairly evenly between compounds for dairy cows and blends for dairy cows, with the year-to-date production at 1,337,000t, a rise of 10.3%.

"This is mainly due to poor summer, providing lower volumes of silage and of a poorer quality," commented Donald Harvey, Scottish feed chairman of the Agricultural Industries Confederation.

"Cattle have been housed in poorer condition, again due to weather, therefore farmers are playing catch up, supplementing with lower volumes of poor quality silage, and cattle generally not as fit as last year. The saving grace is the cattle price.

"On the dairy front, this is again weather affected with some silage getting cut as late as October/November, combined with a reasonable farm milk price, means farmers are chasing litres to fulfil contracts."

It's a similar story in the pig sector, where a 6.2% increase to 153,000t has been pushed by a 7.3% increase of finishing feed, compared to 5.5% increase in growing feed production and 3.7% increase in breeding feed production. This resulted in a 4.8% increase in production on the year from July to October.

There has been a much lesser increase in poultry feed production, of 1.4% to 491,000t, mostly contributed to layer feed production during the month of October while the year-to-date percentage against broiler chicken feed remains stable.

During the same period, some 382,000t of wheat was used in animal feed production, a rise of 3.3% against 2016 usage, while barley met a stronger demand to rise by 19% to 98,000t and oats even stronger yet as usage rose by 20.3% to 4000t. These figures, however, do not represent true year-to-date figures, as from July to October, wheat usage rose by 1.4% to 1,573,000t, barley by 35.4% to 399,000t and oats by 9.6% to 14,000t.

"The harvest is also having an impact as straw supply is tight and and what is available is expensive. Straw could be used to supplement silage for low maintenance diets, but the supply is that tight this isn't an option for many," added Mr Harvey.

This extra production has resulted in some positive news for sheep producers as the quarterly average price of sheep compounds produced between July and September of this year was £225 per tonne, which has dropped since the start of the year and is the only compound to do so.

The average price of cattle and calf compounds during the same period was £215 per tonne, a slight rise from below the £200 per tonne mark in 2016 but still some £40 per tonne cheaper than prices paid in late 2012 in to 2013.

Pig compounds have averaged £233 per tonne for the same quarter, showing a steady rise since the turn of 2016 but still well below the average prices paid four and five years ago.

Similarly, poultry compounds remain some £50 cheaper than in 2013 but have witnessed a sharper rise in price than the other compounds to £257 per tonne.