The Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS) has extended its relationship with ScotEID and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) to make more Scottish mart pricing data available.
This announcement follows contractual changes in England and Wales from the start of 2024 that mean the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is no longer publishing liveweight mart data from around Great Britain on its website.
The extra Scottish pricing data is set to be published on QMS Market Prices website page.
IAAS executive director, Neil Wilson, said: “We are aware how important the latest price information is to business-making decisions on livestock farms across the country and have been in discussions for several months on how we, as an industry, can continue to provide access to useful and independent market data.
“As a first step, IAAS is working with QMS and ScotEID to enhance what QMS currently publishes and some of that information is now available.
“We will continue to look at different options for making more comprehensive data available depending on what livestock farmers feel they need for their businesses, and we would like producers to feed back to us on this.”
QMS data
IAAS has said that it will be seeking feedback from the livestock industry stakeholders on how this information is presented and made available in the longer term so that it benefits the whole industry into the future.
“Whilst this remains a free resource in Scotland, there is significant cost involved in processing, cleaning and presenting the data and IAAS is keen to hear feedback from producers on how this data could be presented more effectively or offer more insight to aid on-farm decision making,” Wilson said.
QMS currently publishes auction market data for finished/prime and cull stock sold at Scottish auction markets.
The updated arrangement will include information from the border marts as well as store stock data.
QMS chief executive Sarah Millar said: “We are very pleased to be working with IAAS and ScotEID on making this information available so producers can make those important informed decisions that will help maximise margins.
“This data is also integral alongside and in the context of other data from across the industry for our market intelligence team to provide analysis and insights to support this on-farm decision making.”
ScotEID independently processes and verifies Scottish mart information before it is publicly published and has been working with IAAS for several years to provide this for QMS and others.
Scott McDowell of ScotEID said: “To put the power of the data into context, the livestock pricing from Scottish marts represents over 20% of all GB cattle and sheep sales, therefore providing a very reliable indicator and driver of GB trade.”
