Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

If the euro printing presses weren't running we would definitely be feeling it, as bad - worse even - than NZ I think.

But we have to stop thinking of our co-ops as buyers, and thanking them when they spend (our) shareholder funds playing smoke and mirrors with the price. The price is the price, is what they can get for it. And we'd better hope that they stop trying to be clever *buyers* and *processors* and become - instead - loyal agents, picking the milk up and getting the most that can be got for it, this time and every time.

Any other way lies ruin.

I think that we would be a lot worse off than the Kiwi's only for QE. Our cost base/envoironmental restrictions/economic cycle are much more financially oppressive.

Your whole second paragraph makes the assumption of *honesty*....

Sorry but I'm waaaay too synical.

kowtow

Dawggone wrote: »

I think that we would be a lot worse off than the Kiwi's only for QE. Our cost base/envoironmental restrictions/economic cycle are much more financially oppressive.

Your whole second paragraph makes the assumption of *honesty*....

Sorry but I'm waaaay too synical.

It's easier to keep an agent honest than a principal.

Especially when it's a commodity being traded. If I had my way we'd shovel the whole lot into a transparent electronic auction but I think even in Ireland 2.0 (ot is it 3.0?) we're a bit too frit to actually lead the world when there are so many lazy business models out there to copy.

For the moment plenty of small co-ops with clean lorries, clean books, cheerful staff, and total detachment from processors would suit me. It's the related parties in the chain which are going to shaft the farmers.

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

It's easier to keep an agent honest than a principal.

Especially when it's a commodity being traded. If I had my way we'd shovel the whole lot into a transparent electronic auction but I think even in Ireland 2.0 (ot is it 3.0?) we're a bit too frit to actually lead the world when there are so many lazy business models out there to copy.

For the moment plenty of small co-ops with clean lorries, clean books, cheerful staff, and total detachment from processors would suit me. It's the related parties in the chain which are going to shaft the farmers.

Easier to keep an agent honest than a principal... Very true.

The electronic auction will NEVER happen. It gives too much control to the producers.

The smaller 'boutique' coops imho are the way to go. They will be more inventive and transparent.
The lazy business model will be the MO of the bigger coops.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Dawggone wrote: »

I will post the outcome...

Perspective...12% corporate tax, NAMA, bank bailouts etc etc are also state aid.

Countries are STILL allowed to set own tax rates.

NAMA and the bailouts were approved by EU and the bailout was a 'selfless', thankless act foisted onto Ireland to protect the entire European banking system, including French and German banks;)

keep going

Surely if you put a number of poorly performing coops together all you get is a bigger poorly performing coop.the trick is get you business performing well and then by default you will amallgamate on the cheap.everyones totally preoccupied with size but should they look at the craig gardener over the last few years, it aint the big boys at the top

Dawggone

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Countries are STILL allowed to set own tax rates.

NAMA and the bailouts were approved by EU and the bailout was a 'selfless', thankless act foisted onto Ireland to protect the entire European banking system, including French and German banks;)

I fully agree there sherif!
My choice of government aid may not have been the best!

My point is that state aid is a vital part of every industry, and no industry that I can think of is without some sort of aid/subsidy etc.

CelticRambler

frazzledhome wrote: »

Was reading about the protests, Jesus they take no prisoners but what I find interesting is no backlash from the non farming public.

mahoney_j wrote: »

Been reading some of the articles coming out of France over last while and on one hand I say fair fools to them they protested hard and got a result and non farming French public seemed ok with it .some of it went a bit too far though ....

Don't believe everything you don't see on the news! It's pretty close to civil war here in France at the moment. The farmers blockaded le Mont St. Michel at one of its busiest times and the retailers there came back at them pretty hard last week.

Just about every newspaper's comments section is full of anti-farmer sentiment, mostly pointing out the hypocrisy of them driving new John Deere tractors and using iPhones & Samsung Galaxies while complaining about "cheap imports" ...

And at the end of the day, the general French public is sick and tired of being asked to pay for the concessions granted to every band of hoodlums that sets fire to the infrastructure they've already paid for. So consumers are fighting back - won't fly Air France if they can use Ryanair or Easyjet, won't use taxis if they can use Uber, won't use the trains if they can car-share, won't buy French cars where there are German and Japanese brands available, are eating in McDonalds and KFC instead of overpriced mediocre local restaurants ... ... the list goes on and on.

In the meantime, the deal done on milk price this week has already fallen apart. It quickly became clear that it was only going to apply to whole milk for consumption. For all other purposes, the manufacturers were obviously going to source their supplies in "anywhere but France". They know that you can't just up prices by 16% and expect the consumer to keep buying, but there is a large part of French society that believes it should be paid for whatever it does/produces because "I'm worth it" ... even if no-one wants what's on offer.

kowtow

If we wanted a real dairy paradise, both competitive and efficient, we'd keep the co-ops small (and only as agents to collect and deliver milk to the best purchaser at the time)

And we'd beg the government to subsidise processors to come and set up in Ireland. The government are actually quite good at that.

But we'd never let the two get mixed together, not at all, not one little bit. The collection agent and the processor are hopelessly conflicted, and always will be.

Call me stupid, but this seems to be the exact opposite of the way the industry is going.

blackdog1

Dawggone wrote: »

Looks like we are guaranteed a minimum milk price of 34cpl until the new year.

Even though I don't entirely agree with the way that French farmers protest, I have to admit they get results.

France is unique to other countries. Huge internal market and biggest consumers of dairy products in the world.

jaymla627

keep going wrote: »

Surely if you put a number of poorly performing coops together all you get is a bigger poorly performing coop.the trick is get you business performing well and then by default you will amallgamate on the cheap.everyones totally preoccupied with size but should they look at the craig gardener over the last few years, it aint the big boys at the top

You'll have a lot of lads at the top in each co-op making sure they're nice highly paid salary job is kept to, intresting chart on twitter showing that of fonterras 18000plus staff in 2014, 4000 plus where on over a 100,000 a year theirz to many lads with their snouts in the trough on a management level

Buford T. Justice XIX

blackdog1 wrote: »

France is unique to other countries. Huge internal market and biggest consumers of dairy products in the world.

And as one of the biggest contributors to the EU, they can interpret the 'rules' to suit their own adgenda.

CelticRambler wrote: »

Don't believe everything you don't see on the news! It's pretty close to civil war here in France at the moment. The farmers blockaded le Mont St. Michel at one of its busiest times and the retailers there came back at them pretty hard last week.

Just about every newspaper's comments section is full of anti-farmer sentiment, mostly pointing out the hypocrisy of them driving new John Deere tractors and using iPhones & Samsung Galaxies while complaining about "cheap imports" ...

And at the end of the day, the general French public is sick and tired of being asked to pay for the concessions granted to every band of hoodlums that sets fire to the infrastructure they've already paid for. So consumers are fighting back - won't fly Air France if they can use Ryanair or Easyjet, won't use taxis if they can use Uber, won't use the trains if they can car-share, won't buy French cars where there are German and Japanese brands available, are eating in McDonalds and KFC instead of overpriced mediocre local restaurants ... ... the list goes on and on.

In the meantime, the deal done on milk price this week has already fallen apart. It quickly became clear that it was only going to apply to whole milk for consumption. For all other purposes, the manufacturers were obviously going to source their supplies in "anywhere but France". They know that you can't just up prices by 16% and expect the consumer to keep buying, but there is a large part of French society that believes it should be paid for whatever it does/produces because "I'm worth it" ... even if no-one wants what's on offer.

Interesting to see the protests from the other side, thanks for that.

On the point above, that attitude is found in every sector of every society. We all have the attitude that our sector is special and need special dispensations to survive and prosper.

Dawggone wrote: »

I fully agree there sherif!
My choice of government aid may not have been the best!

My point is that state aid is a vital part of every industry, and no industry that I can think of is without some sort of aid/subsidy etc.

True there, Dawg, but the big difference is, while every other sector of society has their benefits protection rising with their wages, the agricultural sector has been stuck at the same level now since the SFP was introduced.

If you add in the cuts from modulation and just normal inflation (ag output inflation is 25% and ag input inflation is 72% in the last decade) at c.2% a year, the real value of ag subsidies has nearly halved in that time period.

More and more for less and less is the mantra.:(

WheatenBriar

But the french have paid for nothing really,its all borrowed
They must have one of the highest debts per capita in Europe and surely the heaviest taxed

Dawggone

CelticRambler wrote: »

Don't believe everything you don't see on the news! It's pretty close to civil war here in France at the moment. The farmers blockaded le Mont St. Michel at one of its busiest times and the retailers there came back at them pretty hard last week.

Just about every newspaper's comments section is full of anti-farmer sentiment, mostly pointing out the hypocrisy of them driving new John Deere tractors and using iPhones & Samsung Galaxies while complaining about "cheap imports" ...

And at the end of the day, the general French public is sick and tired of being asked to pay for the concessions granted to every band of hoodlums that sets fire to the infrastructure they've already paid for. So consumers are fighting back - won't fly Air France if they can use Ryanair or Easyjet, won't use taxis if they can use Uber, won't use the trains if they can car-share, won't buy French cars where there are German and Japanese brands available, are eating in McDonalds and KFC instead of overpriced mediocre local restaurants ... ... the list goes on and on.

In the meantime, the deal done on milk price this week has already fallen apart. It quickly became clear that it was only going to apply to whole milk for consumption. For all other purposes, the manufacturers were obviously going to source their supplies in "anywhere but France". They know that you can't just up prices by 16% and expect the consumer to keep buying, but there is a large part of French society that believes it should be paid for whatever it does/produces because "I'm worth it" ... even if no-one wants what's on offer.

I feel that I have to reply to this.
On the whole there is massive support for the farmers in France. I can certainly believe that the traders in Mont St. Michel were annoyed, and rightly so.

To take a more objective view on this, I would put it to you that the farmers did cause localised mayhem/damage/destruction/disruption, but it was localised.
Compare what the farmers did to the disruption the air traffic controllers caused. It was not just localised, it was disruption on an international scale.

Your other points about people preferring to eat in McD/KFC I have to disagree with. The reason people use these so much is they are the only restaurants that are open. The lazy French hold onto their 35hr week with a dead mans grip.

French made cars are the majority of cars on the road, by a huge margin.

Socialism is what the French want, and the "I'm worth it" culture prevails. It permeates throughout every corner of society.
Believe me I've had it up to my oxters listening to gobshytes telling me ( their employer), how important their family time, holidays and days off are!
I swear the feckin arrogance of a worker complaining that he needs two hours to properly digest his lunch drives me to the verge of manslaughter.

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

If we wanted a real dairy paradise, both competitive and efficient, we'd keep the co-ops small (and only as agents to collect and deliver milk to the best purchaser at the time)

And we'd beg the government to subsidise processors to come and set up in Ireland. The government are actually quite good at that.

But we'd never let the two get mixed together, not at all, not one little bit. The collection agent and the processor are hopelessly conflicted, and always will be.

Call me stupid, but this seems to be the exact opposite of the way the industry is going.

Yes, that would be a very good infrastructure for the dairy business...
Simple and straightforward.

Worth reflecting on.

kevthegaff

Dawggone wrote: »

Believe me I've had it up to my oxters listening to gobshytes telling me ( their employer), how important their family time, holidays and days off are!
I swear the feckin arrogance of a worker complaining that he needs two hours to properly digest his lunch drives me to the verge of manslaughter.

Vintage stuff dawg :-D

kevthegaff

Quotas should have been gone a decade ago, wer jumping on a full bus, A lot of us are going to get squeezed! Would you agree the french are more into theyre wine/food then hard grafting dawg? Also have thr even a bigger sense of entitlement then here?

mahoney_j

Dawggone wrote: »

I feel that I have to reply to this.
On the whole there is massive support for the farmers in France. I can certainly believe that the traders in Mont St. Michel were annoyed, and rightly so.

To take a more objective view on this, I would put it to you that the farmers did cause localised mayhem/damage/destruction/disruption, but it was localised.
Compare what the farmers did to the disruption the air traffic controllers caused. It was not just localised, it was disruption on an international scale.

Your other points about people preferring to eat in McD/KFC I have to disagree with. The reason people use these so much is they are the only restaurants that are open. The lazy French hold onto their 35hr week with a dead mans grip.

French made cars are the majority of cars on the road, by a huge margin.

Socialism is what the French want, and the "I'm worth it" culture prevails. It permeates throughout every corner of society.
Believe me I've had it up to my oxters listening to gobshytes telling me ( their employer), how important their family time, holidays and days off are!
I swear the feckin arrogance of a worker complaining that he needs two hours to properly digest his lunch drives me to the verge of manslaughter.

Would he need 2 hours to digest a p45!or its French equivlant😎😎

freedominacup

Dawggone wrote: »

I feel that I have to reply to this.
On the whole there is massive support for the farmers in France. I can certainly believe that the traders in Mont St. Michel were annoyed, and rightly so.

To take a more objective view on this, I would put it to you that the farmers did cause localised mayhem/damage/destruction/disruption, but it was localised.
Compare what the farmers did to the disruption the air traffic controllers caused. It was not just localised, it was disruption on an international scale.

Your other points about people preferring to eat in McD/KFC I have to disagree with. The reason people use these so much is they are the only restaurants that are open. The lazy French hold onto their 35hr week with a dead mans grip.

French made cars are the majority of cars on the road, by a huge margin.

Socialism is what the French want, and the "I'm worth it" culture prevails. It permeates throughout every corner of society.
Believe me I've had it up to my oxters listening to gobshytes telling me ( their employer), how important their family time, holidays and days off are!
I swear the feckin arrogance of a worker complaining that he needs two hours to properly digest his lunch drives me to the verge of manslaughter.

You'd have to wonder what brought Dawn back out there. They couldn't get their heads around the employment laws the first time, from what you'd read things haven't swung in the employers favour much in the intervening 15/20 years.

stretch film

Are ure staff unionised dawg :0

Dawggone

kevthegaff wrote: »

Quotas should have been gone a decade ago, wer jumping on a full bus, A lot of us are going to get squeezed! Would you agree the french are more into theyre wine/food then hard grafting dawg? Also have thr even a bigger sense of entitlement then here?

Good point there Kev...jumping on a full bus... I can't agree though.

French workers are a disaster. The sense of entitlement is unbearable.
In fairness when they are working they really do work, for 35hrs, then out the gap...

Dawggone

mahoney_j wrote: »

Would he need 2 hours to digest a p45!or its French equivlant😎😎

ROFLMAO!!
Nice one Mahoney.

Dawggone

stretch film wrote: »

Are ure staff unionised dawg :0

Phuckin country is unionised Stretch. Think along the lines of the great bearded ones in Ireland.

Dawggone

freedominacup wrote: »

You'd have to wonder what brought Dawn back out there. They couldn't get their heads around the employment laws the first time, from what you'd read things haven't swung in the employers favour much in the intervening 15/20 years.

It's a whole lot worse Free. I've a couple of friends that are trying to co-ordinate Irish multinational forays into France...let's say it's a sharp learning curve!

johnny122

If you happen to work in the UK USA Ireland etc the prevaling work culture is when your hours are put in your expected to do more , if you don't then your looked on as being lazy or lacking ambition. Why is this so ? You may have worked as hard as the next person or more so during work hours however others may stay late having laxed during the day but they make themselves look good by staying late! And hoping they get noticed by the boss. In general we are expected to live to work not work to live . What's wrong with taking your full holidays and finishing on time?
If you look at the Scandinavian countries by comparison they work less and everything they do is about work life balance and they are not broke ,they do pay high taxes however.
On the French you have to admire the way the farmers stick together when protesting makes our crowd here look like a pack of pansies by comparison

kowtow

Dawggone wrote: »

It's a whole lot worse Free. I've a couple of friends that are trying to co-ordinate Irish multinational forays into France...let's say it's a sharp learning curve!

I lived & worked for a few years in an African country which had been, at one time or another, both French & English.

French sense of entitlement (and bureaucracy), Indian morality, and an African work ethic. Quite unique.

And to cap it all, if anything the cuisine was British.

CelticRambler

mahoney_j wrote: »

Would he need 2 hours to digest a p45!or its French equivlant😎😎

Of course not - your average French worker is unsackable, and if they are sacked, they'll happily bring the whole company down to prove a point ... which is why there has been no net employment in France for 86 months.

Re the cars - yes, the cars on the roads are French, but the cars being sold/bought new are mostly non-French, unless you count the Dacia-made-by-cheap-eastern-Europeans-but-we'll-pretend-it's-a-Renault brand.

Getting back to dairy products though, France is the second largest milk producer, but well below Britain and Ireland in terms of per-capita consumption (about half/twice), and dairy consumption in France is falling. Ireland is the EU's biggest cheese exporter by value (France trundles along in fourth or fifth place because when all is said and done, they produce a very average product. This is a common feature of every sector in France - even with regard to electricity, it's a shambles. They get 85% of it from their own cheap nuclear plants, but they're still a net importer because the production doesn't match the consumption.

When you live here, you realise that the reputation for great cuisine is a myth - most French eat a plate of rubbish, whether they buy it in a restaurant or prepare it themselves. This means that anyone bringing a new product to the market has an immediate advantage, whether it's meat, dairy, poultry, baked products, whatever. Even at a very local level you can see this - every bring-and-buy cake sale or picnic is dominated by high-quality English/Scottish/Welsh, sometimes Irish home baking. It flies off the counter while the French stuff sits there going stale.

I've been trying to organise eye-opener tours in this sector for a few years. Getting a dozen candidate farms in Ireland is no problem - any county in the south will have twice that number. Doing things in reverse, I've strugged to get a dozen specialist producers here in an area the size of Munster and Leinster combined. Unless they're heading for organic certification, 99% of the dairy producers (cows, goats, sheep) only think of selling straight to the coop to make bog-standard industrial product.

kowtow

CelticRambler wrote: »

Ireland is the EU's biggest cheese exporter by value (France trundles along in fourth or fifth place because when all is said and done, they produce a very average product.

I think those figures hide a fundamental truth though - Ireland is primarily a manufacturer of factory & block cheese, which - although high enough in quality - is simple to the taste and uninteresting. France's artisan cheeses leave most countries standing including Ireland. Although we have some interesting, and even some excellent, farmhouse cheeses coming along they don't hold a candle to the best of the continent.

We lost our historical tradition of cheese-making long ago - unlike the French, the Italians, Swiss & Germans, and while we are replacing it - neither our skills, our heritage, our indeed our relatively unsophisticated national palette are anywhere near at the level of the countries of mainland Europe.

frazzledhome

Can someone tell me what the world market price for milk would be if quota still existed?

What would we be getting?

Are any if you that are giving out about co op boards putting yourselves forward to become leaders of that business?

How doable is it for all our milk to be going into Artisan foods?

Is the Carbury model repeatable around the country? It is the most successful model in the country as they have some great products and markets. They have always distributed profits between members in milk price and rightly so.

Name a coop not supporting milk price at the moment?

What do ye think will be achieved by blocking roads and other acts of vandalism that some feel we should do?

We are at a stage where milk production world wide is at an all time high, quotas are gone in EU and low oil and grain prices world wide are driving this oversupply.

It has been flagged for the last 3 yrs that supply was outstripping demand so this point was inevitable. Markets will have to sort this out. The EU riding in to save the day won't happen yet and perhaps shouldn't happen as it will delay any recovery.

Cow Porter

Telling it how it is frazzledhome fair play.

(ps it's spelt carbery)

mahoney_j

frazzledhome wrote: »

Can someone tell me what the world market price for milk would be if quota still existed?

What would we be getting?

Are any if you that are giving out about co op boards putting yourselves forward to become leaders of that business?

How doable is it for all our milk to be going into Artisan foods?

Is the Carbury model repeatable around the country? It is the most successful model in the country as they have some great products and markets. They have always distributed profits between members in milk price and rightly so.

Name a coop not supporting milk price at the moment?

What do ye think will be achieved by blocking roads and other acts of vandalism that some feel we should do?

We are at a stage where milk production world wide is at an all time high, quotas are gone in EU and low oil and grain prices world wide are driving this oversupply.

It has been flagged for the last 3 yrs that supply was outstripping demand so this point was inevitable. Markets will have to sort this out. The EU riding in to save the day won't happen yet and perhaps shouldn't happen as it will delay any recovery.

Gave over a year on rep committee and absolute waste of my time ,board was been restructured earlier this year and didn't canvass for any votes and notvrelected and quite happy.no one should be on a board just cause they've a good knowledge of a dairy farm etc.personally found it unfulfilling ,closed shop as regards new views ,change would be very hard got ,im35 and majority of other members were 10 to 20 years older than me and had been there for years
Yes we're at an all time high re production but our coops need to be more efficient and open minded to new ventures etc