It is the second cattle sale since livestock sales can again take place with buyers present at the ringside, and Carnaross Mart in Co Meath is surrounded by the usual throng of lorries and trailers. Things are different, though: farmers must sanitise their hands and wear surgical gloves before entering the lairage area to examine animals before the sale, and physically distant positions are marked with yellow tape around the ring, with just three people now allowed to stand against the railings where groups would normally congregate for the most heated bidding. Everyone seems happy to follow the rules.

At 11 o’clock, the auctioneer opens the sale with these words: “We recommend you bid on phone, but if you’re shy we’ll accept a bid. If your bid is the same as an internet bid, the internet gets priority.” He then proceeds with the first lot, his singsong along bid prices occasionally interrupted by a series of silent clicks when bidding rages between online buyers only. 

In the lairage, farmers met by The Currency all moved online during the lockdown, but they’re glad to be back at the mart. “It was the only route to buying or selling cattle,” says Ciaran O’Reilly. Marts initially offered a match-making service where buyers could leave bids in writing, but it never took off. Most farmers say online saved the trade over the past four months. “It has been a massive hit,” says John Smith. “It’s vitally important to see the cattle. Once there’s a viewing period, it’s OK.” “It wouldn’t be my cup of tea,” counters Martin Birdy, who chose to drive all the way from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. “It suits the seller better than the buyer,” he adds.

“One buys from the US”

Carnaross Mart was the first to hold online sales on April 6. It was one of just three marts preparing to use technology provider Livestock Live (LSL) before the lockdown. “They were only closed for one or two days,” says Tullamore, Co Offaly-based Brendan Hannigan, owner of Livestock Live. Online sales were able to resume as soon as measures were in place to let sellers drop animals safely in the morning.

As restrictions took hold, other marts flocked to online auctions, with at least half of around 100 marts on the island of Ireland now offering this type of service. Livestock Live is the market leader with 25 currently listed. Hannigan says that by the time marts re-opened to the public on June 8, his system was carrying sales across 60 rings each week, with each mart averaging around 1,000 viewers and 100 bidders each day – more than they would have seen from physical buyers in the past. “We have customers who live overseas but have inherited farms in Ireland. One buys from the US,” he says. A total of 30,000 potential buyers are registered with Livestock Live, growing by 500 each day, Hannigan adds.

Earlier this year, Livestock Live added a new feature allowing farmers to manage their herd data through its app for free. The company’s various cloud applications allow each animal’s identity and regulatory information, such as veterinary medicines used, to be transferred automatically to state agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and Bord Bia – and to or from the mart if the animal is sold through a ring where sales are run on Livestock Live. “We’re creating a platform ecosystem for the farming community,” says Hannigan.

“Livestock Live is an online farm management system developed for Viastar.”

Viastar website

Carnaross Mart is owned by James Mallon, whose family also owns Liffey Meats, a beef processor headquartered at the nearby Ballyjamesduff factory in Co Cavan. Mallon manages the live trade side of the family business and also owns Viastar, a company exporting live animals.

When Livestock Live launched in September 2014, it was conducting direct sales (outside marts). The Irish Farmers Journal reported at the time: “According to Brendan Hannigan, CEO of LSL, the company is working with James Mallon of Viastar, one of Ireland’s largest buyers and exporters of livestock. The company has secured additional agreements from livestock buyers and exporters across the world who purchase over 200,000 animals each year.”

To this day, Viastar is the only direct buyer advertised on Livestock Live’s website, while Viastar’s website Viastarexports.com displays Livestock Live’s logo and states: “Livestock Live is an online farm management system developed for Viastar. The system allows you to manage the day-to-day purchase and export of cattle in our yards.”

This connection has raised concerns among a number of market participants contacted by The Currency, given the wealth of data collected by Livestock Live on the cattle trade and on individual herds.

“I’m a friend of James Mallon and it ends there,” Hannigan replies. While he acknowledges that Viastar is a client of Livestock Live, it is for “a completely different product. What Livestock Live developed for Viastar is an internal livestock management system, a white-labelled product that is available to any other trader,” he adds.

Hannigan says that he has been the sole owner and director of Livestock Live companies registered both in Ireland and in the UK since 2014, which is confirmed by company filings. Hannigan adds he has fully funded the company. He has a separate medical recruitment business in the UK. Mallon did not return calls from The Currency.

Livestock Live had retained losses of £70,000 last year in the UK, where it has been based since 2014. It registered an Irish company last year.

“The biggest challenge for these platforms is now, because they have to work in conjunction with the ring.”

Eric Driver, Tullow Mart

Golden Vale Marts (GVM), a major auctioneering co-op managing property and livestock sales from Limerick to Leitrim, chose Livestock Live for its four marts. While they had video streams of sales before, buyers could not bid online. “It would have been difficult to bring this in in a different situation,” says GVM chief executive PJ Buckley. “Marts hadn’t changed in 60 years. They had to grasp technology.” 

The lockdown changed everything: “This forced everybody to get on the system,” he says. As numbers remain limited around the ring, he thinks online is here to stay, alongside physical bidding. “Sellers are very happy with it – you’re meeting more buyers.” According to Buckley, the cost of the system is justified.

According to pricing documents seen by The Currency, Livestock Live costs €3,750 per ring to install including cameras and laptops, and the company charges €1.95 per head of cattle sold. Cheaper deals are available to marts using Livestock Live software to manage their entire business.

Buckley says that some people did bring up concerns regarding Livestock Live’s connection to the Mallon family, but he was satisfied with Hannigan’s statement of independence. “James Mallon doesn’t own the system, I’m happy enough with that,” Buckley says. “I couldn’t speak highly enough of it. They are very flexible.”

In Co Carlow, too, online sales are here to stay – albeit in combination with bidding by physically present buyers. “The biggest challenge for these platforms is now, because they have to work in conjunction with the ring,” says Eric Driver, manager of Tullow Mart. His business held an online-only sale for the first time on May 1 and has successfully used the system ever since, but also reopened its premises to buyers last week. “There were teething problems” at that point in keeping physical and remote bidding synchronised, he acknowledged. “But nothing that couldn’t be addressed. I won’t be turning it off.”

Beyond Covid-19 restrictions, Driver sees long-term interest in the technology to draw business from farmers who cannot be present, especially those with off-farm jobs. But he also notes the potential of online auctions in advertising sales more widely, whether buyers end up bidding through the system or not. The service provider he chose was MartEye, based on price competitiveness (Tullow Mart was MartEye’s first customer and able to negotiate a deal) and confidence in a local supplier. 

Machine vision and digital gavel

MartEye is a joint venture between Carlow-based AgriCam, the business of livestock monitoring CCTV supplier Jamie Nolan, and HerdEye, a machine vision agtech start-up based in the Portershed accelerator in Galway.

I first met HerdEye founder Ciarán Feeney in the Enterprise Ireland tent at last year’s National Ploughing Championships, where he was presenting the company’s machine vision technology. The 31-year-old entrepreneur is developing a camera system to monitor cows and detect when they might need assistance with calving to alert the farmer. The product is due to launch in September and new features under development include lameness detection (a key indicator of animal welfare) and an API for external customers such as dairy co-ops to access farm data for quality assurance.

“We have a unique skillset with the hardware aspect and video,” Feeney says. “We started in April and held the first sale in Tullow Mart at the beginning of May. Initially web-based, MartEye then released its smartphone app this month. It now runs online sales for 13 marts and is in negotiations with two more in Co Tyrone and Co Cavan.

To help auctioneers manage dual physical and online sales, Feeney says his team has developed a digital gavel to cut the need for an additional person watching the internet on the rostrum. “When an online bid comes, the auctioneer gets a vibration in the handle,” he says. A switch and a sensor on the USB-connected gavel also allow the auctioneer to change bid increments and close the sale by letting the hammer fall in the traditional way.

Asked for MartEye’s competitive advantage compared to the incumbent Livestock Live, Feeney says it is cheaper and offers better quality video. Some operators such as the Munster market leader Cork Marts have hedged their bets, connecting some marts to Livestock Live and others to MartEye.

“It could be more of a tool for sellers than buyers in the future, especially those with part-time jobs.”

Adam Woods, Irish Farmers Journal

A third competitor has recently entered this market – Martbids, an app developed by the Agricultural Trust, publishers of the Irish Farmers Journal (who happens to be my former employer). While the system was initially launched three years ago to facilitate bids through a phone, it did not include video streams at the time. Irish Farmers Journal beef editor Adam Woods acknowledged that it had been unsuccessful. 

However, Covid-19 generated “new appetite” for a new version of Martbids with added live video, Woods says. Fresh demand came from the marts and the system now covers 10 premises, he adds. He says one of the system’s strengths is the detailed catalogue generated ahead of its sale, which was in place from earlier versions. Sellers can add photos to it to advertise their stock free of charge.

As a non-profit organisation, Woods says the Agricultural Trust operates Martbids on a cost-recovery basis only. “We’ve a history of working with marts. It’s a very transparent way of trading animals,” he says. “We felt it was the right thing to do.”

From his own experience as a Co Cavan farmer selling animals and running back and forth all day between the mart, work and family commitments to clear sales, Woods says: “It could be more of a tool for sellers than buyers in the future, especially those with part-time jobs.”

Agricultural Trust CEO Justin McCarthy says that while he doesn’t intend to return a profit from Martbids, the Irish Farmers Journal has an interest in it as a publisher as it already collects mart sales data for reporting. “The cameras can take pictures for illustrated mart reports,” he says. “We handle the data responsibly and return it to the farmers in the interest of transparency.” The Irish Farmers Journal has also increasingly held events for its readers at marts around the country in recent years, and the equipment will offer the option of streaming them online, McCarthy adds.

Also competing with the three Irish technology providers is Newline ASP, a British company with dozens of marts signed across the UK including in Northern Ireland. Its online service Auctionmarts.com has now moved across the border, running online sales for Mayo-Sligo Mart in Ballina, Station Road Mart in Cootehill, Co Cavan and Ballybay Mart in Co Monaghan.