Livestock Editor Justin McCarthy leaves IFJ for ABP!

Arrow in the Knee

As above.

Big blow for Irish Farmers Journal.

Better money perhaps

Bizzum

I hope he brings Damien O Reilly with him!

Des1

Bizzum wrote: »

I hope he brings Damien O Reilly with him!

Agreed. He has to be one of the worst journalists in the country. The fact that he has a plug in RTE only qualifies what I am stating.

I spoke to Justin on a few occasions and found him to be a very straight talking bloke who can see the wood from the trees. I wish him all the best.

Muckit

Where is it mentioned in the IFJ? Can't seem to find it. Thanks!

sea12

Muckit wrote: »

Where is it mentioned in the IFJ? Can't seem to find it. Thanks!

On the bottom of page 2 .

Muckit

God they didn't waste much paper did they, much an all as they loved him!!

nashmach

Old news though - ad for his replacement must have been published more than 4 weeks ago.

flat out !!

Didnt read the journal yet, still drawing bales , so where's he going, ADP, what's that?

Mac Taylor

Game keeper turned poacher:D

flat out !!

Oh, ABP group, not ADP.

pakalasa

It's strange one alright. He was one of the most critical voices on factory beef prices ...and now he gets a job with them. One way to shut him up, I guess. Or am I being cynical.......:rolleyes:

Bodacious

pakalasa wrote: »

It's strange one alright. He was one of the most critical voices on factory beef prices ...and now he gets a job with them. One way to shut him up, I guess. Or am I being cynical.......:rolleyes:

Lovely fella Justin. It's a pity and a big loss to the IFJ. Movie stuff..He left the cops and gone to work for the mafia !!! :-(

Tipp Man

I admired his passion

But i have to say it could be good to have a new voice in the beef section - maybe point things in a slightly different direction

BeeDI

I vote for Leg Wax to get the job in the rag!
It'll be nothing but blues :D
Lads like me with fair to middeling charlies, will have to stop buying the paper, with the pressure getting too much:D

redzerologhlen

BeeDI wrote: »

I vote for Leg Wax to get the job in the rag!
It'll be nothing but blues :D
Lads like me with fair to middeling charlies, will have to stop buying the paper, with the pressure getting too much:D

Hes getting there already, did you not see his calves in it this week

flatout11

i would of thought he had his eyes set on the editors job after matt.... who do you reckon will take up the position of head livestock reporter?

like the man or not he was damm good at his job - big loss for the journal

Tipp Man

flatout11 wrote: »

i would of thought he had his eyes set on the editors job after matt.... who do you reckon will take up the position of head livestock reporter?

like the man or not he was damm good at his job - big loss for the journal

He was damn good at promoting a certain kind of beef farming

Personally i thought his views were too tunnelled - i rarely saw anything from him which was out of the box thinking or doing things a bit differently

leg wax

BeeDI wrote: »

I vote for Leg Wax to get the job in the rag!
It'll be nothing but blues :D
Lads like me with fair to middeling charlies, will have to stop buying the paper, with the pressure getting too much:D

i thought about it but it looked like work,anyways i am over qualified:p

charityboy

to be fair to him he probably is a nice fellow but if you were to follow some of his advice over the years you could get bogged very quick ,he had limited ideas but best of luck to him

maxxuumman

Will miss Justins reporting, but I think there is a family link with ABP.
He was never afraid to rattle a few cages for the farmers cause.
Any chance that Jack K would move on aswell.
I notice that there is a new guy doing some of the dairy reporting. It nice to have some new writing in the dairy section.
Are they breaking it to us gently that Jack may be moving to greener pastures. One can only hope.

Arrow in the Knee

I hope they don't bring in rookies to do reporting and features for us Farmers.

It's an educational paper to help farmers progress their farm operations.

New ideas are great as long as they don't bring in fresh faces who lack experience in their relevant section in the IFJ.

Arrow in the Knee

I usually read the Irish Farmers Journal, The farming section in the Irish Independent, Farmers Weekly Uk, Farm Week N.I., Farmers Guardian and if I were closer to the border I would get the Scottish Farmer.

But I still think the IFJ is the best farming paper.

pakalasa

No doubt about it but the IFJ is a serious paper. Maybe they should consider having more than one regular contributor to the the Beef Section. No matter who you get, there are always going to be just his views at the end of the day.

milkprofit

Is it time for a new Edditor

kboc

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

I usually read the Irish Farmers Journal, The farming section in the Irish Independent, Farmers Weekly Uk, Farm Week N.I., Farmers Guardian and if I were closer to the border I would get the Scottish Farmer.

But I still think the IFJ is the best farming paper.

I live in the border regions and read all the above on a regular basis, and no doubt the IFJ is the best by a considerable margin.

Conflats

maxxuumman wrote: »

Will miss Justins reporting, but I think there is a family link with ABP.
He was never afraid to rattle a few cages for the farmers cause.
Any chance that Jack K would move on aswell.
I notice that there is a new guy doing some of the dairy reporting. It nice to have some new writing in the dairy section.
Are they breaking it to us gently that Jack may be moving to greener pastures. One can only hope.

No the lad is only on a short contract i believe

Suckler

pakalasa wrote: »

No doubt about it but the IFJ is a serious paper. Maybe they should consider having more than one regular contributor to the the Beef Section. No matter who you get, there are always going to be just his views at the end of the day.

Good idea. A few contributors would add different experiences/ objectives and results and would offer some flexibility to, as others described, a rigid and tunnelled viewpoint. I find some articles useful others are for bigger operators etc.

oldsmokey

I see the bane of the factories lives is quitting his job at the Journal, where to be fair, he did terrific work, to join the hoors at ABP - "a senior position" according to the Journal - hope he uses his influence there to have them pay a fair price to farmers.
Th e Journal will have a tough time replacing him - he wasnt always the most consistent in his views, but i thought him bright and he was a grafter..you could see him anywhere in the country at meetings, shows, events..
He hated to see lads spending money on machinery, wanted to see them spend the dough on sheds, handling facilites and AI straws!
Twill be interesting to see how he goes on...

Farmer Pudsey

As you will seed from other threads that I have posted on one thing agree with Justin on is the is not spending toom much money on Machinery/4WD. However I do not know will he be the loss that people think he will be. It might be a good thing for the journal to get a bit of new blood.

Also I cannot see him doing us ant favours at ABP as ''he who pays the piper call the tune''. However having said all that I wish him all the best in his new endevour.

Sunset V

pakalasa wrote: »

No doubt about it but the IFJ is a serious paper.

I'll preface this by saying I buy the Journal every week and swear by it.

It has Good spread and covers a lot but sure it's just essentially propaganda for the IFA. In the same buildings as the IFA, rarely mentions the other farm orgs so I question its impartiality.

I think the Farm Indo is a more balanced paper but far too light on content.

Like Justin though, wish him all the very best. He'll be savage hard to replace...!

Box09

The journal is not a good publication. Articles are rehashed each year and they follow the IFA agenda. It has a limited budget and so the journalists, with the exception of a few, tend to be young with a couple of years experience and are low paid.

oldsmokey

Hi, can someone explain why my original opening post has 'moved' stuck on it, and its been moved to page 2, along with giving it a new heading?.. and 'Arrow in the knee ' is credited with it?...surely it makes the post difficult to follow if a reader can't read the Opening post??

Arrow in the Knee

oldsmokey wrote: »

and 'Arrow in the knee ' is credited with it?...surely it makes the post difficult to follow if a reader can't read the Opening post??

Ahh it's cos I'm great

JohnBoy

because there was half a dozen different discussions on this topic so they've all been merged.




There is a lot of repetition over the years, but farming is repetitve too so they cant really be blamed too much for that in a way

I'm not sure how much they play to the IFA tune as opposed to the other organisations not being nearly as active as the IFA.

any full time, specilaist publication will simply reproduce press releases to fill pages, I'm guessing the IFA machine issues a hell of a lot of press releases.

I think that on a whole it's not a bad paper, I get the farmers weekly once a month or so, and to be honest, once you get past the glossy pages, and higher production quality, what I find is that it's not a whole lot better to be honest.


I occasionally see the farming indo, or the examiner's supplement, and I think what makes them appear better is their thin-ness, they're not trying as hard to fill pages as the likes of the journal or farmers weekly.



As for justin, I'll miss his work, he was perhaps a bit too focused on one area, but he certainly seemed to care about his job.

reilig

oldsmokey wrote: »

Hi, can someone explain why my original opening post has 'moved' stuck on it, and its been moved to page 2, along with giving it a new heading?.. and 'Arrow in the knee ' is credited with it?...surely it makes the post difficult to follow if a reader can't read the Opening post??

[I moved it. There was already a post on this specific topic. Therefore, i merged your post with it. There is no point in starting a new post on a topic which is already in current discussion. This is how things are done around here! If you want credit for starting a thread, start one on a topic which isn't already in discussion on the forum.

Reilig
MOD]

Gloomtastic!

Box09 wrote: »

The journal is not a good publication. Articles are rehashed each year and they follow the IFA agenda. It has a limited budget and so the journalists, with the exception of a few, tend to be young with a couple of years experience and are low paid.

In the magazine/newspaper business, we used to call it taking the PR shilling. Unless you work for one of the nationals, Journalists are paid peanuts for rehashing press releases. If they jump ship to the other side and issue the press releases, they can effectively double their salary overnight. Can't blame them.

oldsmokey

And me being an avid F+F follower, can't figure how i missed the other 'justin has jumped' thread..ah well...maybe an original thread about the weather will get me some badly-needed kudos ..is it raining outside lads?

Tipp Man

Glanced through the journal this morning and found this quote from Justin himself very interesting - and a bit unusual

"if i had to buy a herd of functional and fertile cows that would produce progency suited to a grass based system I think I would look to Scotland before i'd look to the West of Ireland"

bob charles

Tipp Man wrote: »

Glanced through the journal this morning and found this quote from Justin himself very interesting - and a bit unusual

"if i had to buy a herd of functional and fertile cows that would produce progency suited to a grass based system I think I would look to Scotland before i'd look to the West of Ireland"

thats the carcass that meat factories are after in Ireland nowadays,

pakalasa

bob charles wrote: »

thats the carcass that meat factories are after in Ireland nowadays,

So we can take it he has truly 'jumped ship' now.:D

Atilathehun

bob charles wrote: »

thats the carcass that meat factories are after in Ireland nowadays,

Could you expand on that?
There is more than one type of suckler cow in Scotland!

I suppose I have gone the wrong way myself this year again:( Bought in a bunch of red lim heifers, all grand daughters of british friesian cows. Mothers were lims. Good framey heifers, and I was hoping they will bring milk!

flatout11

Atilathehun wrote: »

Could you expand on that?
There is more than one type of suckler cow in Scotland!

scots like em light and plain (ie no big ends)

Atilathehun

flatout11 wrote: »

scots like em light and plain (ie no big ends)

And Charlie Bob, says that's what the factories here are looking for:o

Tipp Man

bob charles wrote: »

thats the carcass that meat factories are after in Ireland nowadays,

I know - i just thought it was a bit of a turnaround from what he has been preaching for the last however many years

Tipp Man

Atilathehun wrote: »

And Charlie Bob, says that's what the factories here are looking for:o

they are - less bulls wanted and less big carcases wanted

Whats the bets that within the next 2 years McCarthy will be saying that more Angus and Hereford are needed and to cut back on the continental

redzerologhlen

Tipp Man wrote: »

I know - i just thought it was a bit of a turnaround from what he has been preaching for the last however many years

I agree tipp man. He has been preaching about replacements from the dairy herd for a few the last few years. I always thought he was the best of the writers in the journal and was a good speaker too. I was often at breeding demos and farm walks where he was talking and he knew his stuff but like was said here he has left the cops to go working for the mafia :rolleyes: I suppose you could say they have bought his silence. The beef section is always the first page I look at and I hope they get someone else good at the job, maybe even 2 different lads because a few different viewpoints wouldnt go astray.

vanderbadger

end of the day I suppose if the man was offered a better job sure he was right to take it

redzerologhlen

vanderbadger wrote: »

end of the day I suppose if the man was offered a better job sure he was right to take it

I know but he was cutting their necks for long enough, If you were a tipp man you wouldnt play hurling for Clare would ya!!

Atilathehun

redzerologhlen wrote: »

I know but he was cutting their necks for long enough, If you were a tipp man you wouldnt play hurling for Clare would ya!!

Tip man wouldn't get on the Clare team:cool: Lar, might make the bench, if we were stuck;)

reilig

Atilathehun wrote: »

bob charles wrote: »

thats the carcass that meat factories are after in Ireland nowadays,

Could you expand on that?
There is more than one type of suckler cow in Scotland!

I suppose I have gone the wrong way myself this year again:( Bought in a bunch of red lim heifers, all grand daughters of british friesian cows. Mothers were lims. Good framey heifers, and I was hoping they will bring milk!

That's what i would be buying if i had to buy replacements. But i wouldn't be bulling them to produce cattle for abp to be slaughtering. I would be looking at producing good big framed bb or ch calves for export. But i suppose not every farmer is thinking like that.

redzerologhlen

Atilathehun wrote: »

Could you expand on that?
There is more than one type of suckler cow in Scotland!

I suppose I have gone the wrong way myself this year again:( Bought in a bunch of red lim heifers, all grand daughters of british friesian cows. Mothers were lims. Good framey heifers, and I was hoping they will bring milk!

Heres the cows from scotland, they are becoming a huge thing across the water apparently

http://www.bigbeef.co.uk/default.asp?catid=26

http://www.jennifermackenzie.co.uk/2005/07/stabiliser.html