EU Study shows grazing decline (dairy)

John_F

got a weekly email from www.thedairysite.com the other day, one topic caught my eye headlined

"EUROPE - Intensification in dairying has seen productivity rocket across Europe at the cost of a widespread decline in traditional grazing methods and undesirable attention from animal welfare groups."

basically the most of the eu is going towards a system of keeping cows indoors maximising production of milk and production off the land. The article compares against the irish e.g.

"Since 2007, average Danish farm output has been at 1 million kilos while Irish output has fluctuated around 250,000 kilos."

Danish farmers now produce over 11 tons of milk per forage hectare. Ireland, where outdoor grazing dominates, and Sweden, where it is mandatory, average no more than six tons per forage hectare.

http://www.thedairysite.com/news/43369/european-study-shows-grazing-decline

so should we have a greenfield predominantly indoor farm with high production, attention to detail and getting the most milk per hectare farmed?? we have greenfield farm kilkenny, shinagh, cappoquin and carrick on suir all of which are focusing on a new zealand style of farming.

bob charles

such questions are not allowed to be posed on this site.
when land is your limiting factor its the only way to go, but also has merits in other situations. The Danish have being pushed this way due to bizarre land prices. I have being on a good few danish farms and boy do they know there business. probably a carry over from the pig side of things. But hey, your daddy didnt do this, so why change

John_F

why change especially when the journal says do anything but this? there is a large amount of debt on these farms but the business plans must be stacking up, otherwise how would they be able to push on?

bob charles

John_F wrote: »

why change especially when the journal says do anything but this? there is a large amount of debt on these farms but the business plans must be stacking up, otherwise how would they be able to push on?

the large amount of debt is down to land purchase and not the business itself, but your talking of much different climates so one peg doesnt fit all holes. Ever watch maize growing in some of these European countries, its unreal and gives a them a serious competitive advantage. take a look at farming along the Danube all the way from the Black forest to the Black sea, thats what you call proper dirt

Timmaay

I wounder what a grass based system could potentially produce on a per ha bases? It cites Ireland as producing 6ton/ha against 11 from Holland, but with the aging profile of Irish farmers, alongside land fragmentation, we surely are nowhere near the limit?

I'm not fully trying to defend the grass based system here btw, just trying to understand where the figures come from and what we could expect to achieve. Obviously its not all about output either, profit per ha is the bottom line.

bob charles

Timmaay wrote: »

I wounder what a grass based system could potentially produce on a per ha bases? It cites Ireland as producing 6ton/ha against 11 from Holland, but with the aging profile of Irish farmers, alongside land fragmentation, we surely are nowhere near the limit?

I'm not fully trying to defend the grass based system here btw, just trying to understand where the figures come from and what we could expect to achieve. Obviously its not all about output either, profit per ha is the bottom line.

think the seed house have to get the ass in gear as plant breeding hasn't moved in grass in the last decade, if anything the grasses from a decade ago where better, take Navan for instance, better than many of the current varieties and it was on the seen around 2000 and I saw a boy planting it the other day

kowtow

bob charles wrote: »

such questions are not allowed to be posed on this site.probably a carry over from the pig side of things. But hey, your daddy didnt do this, so why change

It's a very interesting parallel.

No quotas, cyclical market, mad expansion with everyone getting in, the odd great year followed by years with a relentless drain of cash... and everyone getting out again. Volatility, volatility, volatility.

So how many pork producers are reducing inputs, going extensive, and depending on low input / low output as a way to cope with such a cyclical free market?

delaval

bob charles wrote: »

think the seed house have to get the ass in gear as plant breeding has moved in grass in the last decade, if anything the grasses from a decade ago where better, take Navan for instance, better than many of the current varieties and it was on the seen around 2000 and I saw a boy planting it the other day

Navan one of the best ever. Good bit of it put in here in 07

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

Navan one of the best ever. Good bit of it put in here in 07

I got 3 bags of off the shelf mix to finish out a corner of a field the other day, I looked at the tag and saw Navan as one of the main varieties and I said that will do the finest, still sitting in a bag though

Going forward...

What happened to the EBI system for grass? Maybe that could weave its magic with grass breeding also.

delaval

Going forward... wrote: »

What happened to the EBI system for grass? Maybe that could weave its magic with grass breeding also.

There was a presentation at the Grassland winter conference, the presenter was so poor I lost the will to live and went for coffee!!!!

Going forward...

If you wanted entertainment, you should have gone to the cinema.:pac:

20silkcut

Is re-seeding every 3/4 years with a fast growing Italian ryegrass an option???

Re-seeding technology has improved with stitching etc its not the major operation it was in the past.

Italian ryegrass seed is 50% the price of perennial ryegrass.

When you look at it as a crop that only has to be sowed every 3/4 years as opposed to maize, whole crop etc.

yellow50HX

It's not quite an apples to apples comparison, a better comparison would be cost per kg and price per kg. while continental farmers may have higher output/ha their inputs are also higher. It's a high input high output system where the required feed can be grown on the farm with out relying on expensive imports. Also the grass growing cycle is not as even as here so they would find it harder to manage the grazing.

There is also a climate factor to take into account high energy feed crops like maize & beet can be grown better on the continent but cannot be grazed so will need to be fed anyway. Combining grass silage, maize silage, beet and zero grazing grass provides the high energy diet. While they may have better summers we have better winters which allow for longer grazing. However all that is thrown up in a heap when we get cold and wet.

kevthegaff

Will this high intensive production affect soil quality eventually??

yellow50HX

kevthegaff wrote: »

Will this high intensive production affect soil quality eventually??

Not if its looked after right, just look at the output from tillage for better soil management

bob charles

kevthegaff wrote: »

Will this high intensive production affect soil quality eventually??

maybe it will and the Nitrates Directive was brought in to counteract intensive farming. Finding a home for allot of my slurry is becoming more difficult as I dont have enough land close to the animal housing

bob charles

20silkcut wrote: »

Is re-seeding every 3/4 years with a fast growing Italian ryegrass an option???

Re-seeding technology has improved with stitching etc its not the major operation it was in the past.

Italian ryegrass seed is 50% the price of perennial ryegrass.

When you look at it as a crop that only has to be sowed every 3/4 years as opposed to maize, whole crop etc.

No as really you need to be reseeding every 2 or 3 and its a hungry crop. on saying that it has merits in certain situations but harvesting cost can mount as your doing the same jobs 4 times a year. I have a good few acres to go in this back end just for a change

Muckit

bob charles wrote: »

maybe it will and the Nitrates Directive was brought in to counteract intensive farming. Finding a home for allot of my slurry is becoming more difficult as I dont have enough land close to the animal housing

Drive up through scariff/portumna and cross the Shannon to here and I'I take if off your hands!! :pac:

freedominacup

kowtow wrote: »

It's a very interesting parallel.

No quotas, cyclical market, mad expansion with everyone getting in, the odd great year followed by years with a relentless drain of cash... and everyone getting out again. Volatility, volatility, volatility.

So how many pork producers are reducing inputs, going extensive, and depending on low input / low output as a way to cope with such a cyclical free market?

Very few that I know of, but how many of them have been forced out of the business by the low returns that high input/high output systems yield? A neighbouring farm to mine is spending €3.5 million on dry sow housing at the moment.

Personally I think high output aligned to a system which gets as much grazed grass into the cows as possible will give the best chance for most farmers to expand production significantly esp where land availability is limiting.

Block calving with significant winter production. All cows calved and at grass for peak grass production months, autumn calvers dried off as grass growth reduces over summer. Grazing block stocked a 5/hectare all year round with the grass production defecits filled by buffer fed forages and concentrates either bought in or grown on out farms. This would vary from 100% supplementation in mid-winter to a couple of kgs of meal at peak grass growth.

This is how I see things going in my area. A lot of dairy farms around here where 40 would be around the average age of the guys in command. There's plenty of competition for any plots which become available to rent and almost no sales. Most guys would have some spare land capacity under beef at the mo' but that won't take long to fill. After that higher output per cow will be the only route for increased production.

grazeaway

i was in baviaria a few ago with work and as usual took a wander out into the countryside when i got a bit of time. serious land around munich and much of it is mixed farming very like in holland.

started chatting to a local lad who was moving cows accross the road. these were his replacments and a few dry cows that were grazed outside. all the rest were inside and zero grazed. during the summer they were mostly zero grazed on grass and supplemented with maize if needed. during the winter they were on silage and maize. all the grass and maize was grown on site. he took about 4-5 cuts of silage over the summer and it was all cut at leafy stage (looked like 2 cut silage).

all heavy work done my contrator, ploughing sowing, harvetsing and slurry. farmer himself had only a small amount of gear, feeder wagon always hooked up to a 30yo 2wd tractor, a loader for feeding the silage and cleanig out shead, a 4wd tractor with loader for everything else, a fertilzer spreder, mower, tedder, trailer, a couple of robtic ilking machines and a few bits and pieces.

like he said the way the grass grows everything kinda comes at once so its hard to have a constant grazing cycle, with the winters being quite cold you need good housing facilties so it makes more sense to have faciltes that can be used year round. He sells about half his maize and silage to a local bio engry frim for use in a bio-digester, he then takes the waste back to spread as fertilzer.

120 cows on about 200acres with enough room for his replacments and surplus maize and silage. one man operation and his has enough time to take the kids to bayren munich play every home game.

kowtow

freedominacup wrote: »

Personally I think high output aligned to a system which gets as much grazed grass into the cows as possible will give the best chance for most farmers to expand production significantly esp where land availability is limiting.

Absolutely agree - the ideal system in my mind would be (1) flexible (2) scaleable - i.e. never unduly limited by milking block size and (3) involve high yield, high solids, and as much cheap DM from grass as could be grown in a given year.

To my mind that allows people the capacity to profit (and build up reserves) in good years, whilst maximising margins. The challenge is (as it is for the pig farmer) to manage with a sharp enough pencil to ensure that the worst years don't become a catastrophe. In that sense, farming is no different to any other business.

delaval

kowtow wrote: »

Absolutely agree - the ideal system in my mind would be (1) flexible (2) scaleable - i.e. never unduly limited by milking block size and (3) involve high yield, high solids, and as much cheap DM from grass as could be grown in a given year.

To my mind that allows people the capacity to profit (and build up reserves) in good years, whilst maximising margins. The challenge is (as it is for the pig farmer) to manage with a sharp enough pencil to ensure that the worst years don't become a catastrophe. In that sense, farming is no different to any other business.

'Farming is no different than any other business'.

That's what we all need to learn, romance is for Valentines

bob charles

kowtow wrote: »

Absolutely agree - the ideal system in my mind would be (1) flexible (2) scaleable - i.e. never unduly limited by milking block size and (3) involve high yield, high solids, and as much cheap DM from grass as could be grown in a given year.

To my mind that allows people the capacity to profit (and build up reserves) in good years, whilst maximising margins. The challenge is (as it is for the pig farmer) to manage with a sharp enough pencil to ensure that the worst years don't become a catastrophe. In that sense, farming is no different to any other business.

as much cheap DM from any source in a given year, if cheaper DM that grass is available it has to be used to conserve/supplement your grass stocks for the rainy day.

freedominacup

bob charles wrote: »

as much cheap DM from any source in a given year, if cheaper DM that grass is available it has to be used to conserve/supplement your grass stocks for the rainy day.

What is your overall cost/tonne DM for grass/grass silage?

kowtow

freedominacup wrote: »

What is your overall cost/tonne DM for grass/grass silage?

That is the figure which interests me most in this whole debate.

I see a Teagasc figure of 6c / kg DM for grass from 2009. I see UK (dairyco) aiming for a target of £80 per tonne...

I'd love to hear peoples views on a realistic range of grazed / ensiled grass costs including a sensible land charge (300€ /ac ?) and ranging from good years and great management to disaster...

Since we seem to have a top in on the grain markets, for the time being at least, we can expect softer ration prices all else being equal. Definitely be a good time to re-assess the real costs of grass.

bob charles

freedominacup wrote: »

What is your overall cost/tonne DM for grass/grass silage?

have we not being through all this already around 6 months ago. One poster was saying his grass cost 3c per kilo of dm, teagasc were saying 6c and I was saying my grazed grass was costing me close to 9c a kilo of dm.

I costed in everything and have either a rental to pay on the ground or an opportunity cost if its own land which is the only way to do it, considering your comparing it with bought in feeds

think we went all it in the grass measuring thread when unrealistic costings were posted. cant find the posts

PMU

that article is misleading.it says irish production is only 6 tonnes per ha.thats only 6000lts .most dairy farmers I know are stocked at 2 cows per ha over the whole farm.if we take the average yield at 5000lts thats 10 tonnes per ha. some of our best are stocked at 3 cows per ha.

delaval

freedominacup wrote: »

What is your overall cost/tonne DM for grass/grass silage?

I'll put my neck on the line here.

It's between 7 and 15c/ kilo depending on amount grown and with a land charge of €200

kowtow

delaval wrote: »

I'll put my neck on the line here.

It's between 7 and 15c/ kilo depending on amount grown and with a land charge of €200

Does the 15c cover silage? Or is that another whole deal entirely?

bob charles

kowtow wrote: »

Does the 15c cover silage? Or is that another whole deal entirely?

take my 90 a ton DM and silage harvesting costs are around 50 a ton DM aswell. so 14c per kilo of silage across the 1st,2nd,3rd cops wouldnt be too far out with work charged at contractor rates, my land charge would be around €160 an ac. I was buying quality maize silage at €140t dm last season - same price, superior product

Timmaay

Anyone know how much maize is to buy this year? Either by ton dm, ton wet or acre? Will the good crop of it increase the supply enough to drop the price some bit? I think the neighbours worked it out as costing him 16c/kg dm to grow the maize, on an average yrs yield.

delaval

kowtow wrote: »

Does the 15c cover silage? Or is that another whole deal entirely?

I would put silage costs at 15-25c/kg with contractor doin all work

Our grazed grass is c.8c/kg, this is as close as I can get it

delaval

Please read piece in IFJ about Canada.

The couple featured wanted to expand to dilute fixed costs but can't afford to because of crippling debt. They were borrowed to a level of $35k. If you remove the cost of $25k per cow for quota it's still staggering.

The level of debt is staggering. Denmark was also mentioned where dairy farming is also in a ****ty place because of inter generational borrowing.

I think I'll stick to the Irish system of Grass, targeted meal feeding and min expenditure on capx

kevthegaff

i agree, i think the danes had a large debt per cow too, if lads go for high cost indoor system, robotics, z grazing it will increase cap expenditure big time. The lads with big debt around here are high intensive with not much room if price falls or the dreaded superlevy

mahoney_j

If you've a big land base and can milk loads of cows then by all means fire away with low cost xbreeds system,min meal etc.but if like me with land base around parlour you have to go the intensive high meal usage route,but crucially you have to maximise your cheapest food,grass..grow as much as you can utilise as much of ur as you can.that Canadian example is extreme and not one I'd be going for..you certainly can achieve production of 8 to 9 k Ltrs on grass and about a tonne of meal with good attention to detail and excellent grassland management

delaval

mahoney_j wrote: »

If you've a big land base and can milk loads of cows then by all means fire away with low cost xbreeds system,min meal etc.but if like me with land base around parlour you have to go the intensive high meal usage route,but crucially you have to maximise your cheapest food,grass..grow as much as you can utilise as much of ur as you can.that Canadian example is extreme and not one I'd be going for..you certainly can achieve production of 8 to 9 k Ltrs on grass and about a tonne of meal with good attention to detail and excellent grassland management

Totally agree with all you say.
What you describe would be what I'd call the 'Irish system' as opposed to trying to replicate another one here.
We have a huge resource here 'moisture' and good land and coupled with judicious grain use can compete with any other system.

The case in the IFJ is extreme I'd agree and has no real bearing on our system here. It should serve as a warning to us all though. I spoke to my local IFA guy who was on that trip and the biggest threat in Canada is debt.

I visited farms in Denmark 2 years ago and on both farms the effects of massive fixed costs were evident. These guys with robots 300 cows 2 full time staff in the shed were only barely surviving. These guys were only stocked at 1.5 cows per hectare when you take into account the amount of tillage used to support their cows. These are not isolated examples either, at the conference I attended this was reinforced many times.

There are producers here hamstrung by massive production costs both fixed and variable.

kevthegaff

id like to have a higher yielding cow(holstein) but it doesnt work for my system, i have a large block but its probably the hillyiest dairy farm in tipperary! but not decent quality. The jex cross works best here with lameness, conceptions and general health.

freedominacup

kevthegaff wrote: »

id like to have a higher yielding cow(holstein) but it doesnt work for my system, i have a large block but its probably the hillyiest dairy farm in tipperary! but not decent quality. The jex cross works best here with lameness, conceptions and general health.

Around here we say the parish is flat on average.:D:D:D

bob charles

Guys you are comparing apples and pear when talking about Canada and Denmark and relating back to Ireland. The Danes have high fixed costs as they purchased land a ridiculous money, it really makes not one jot of difference what way they farm it now as they have high fixed costs anyway. There cows are making money.

Not too familiar about the Canadains but is there really restrictive quota in place because of regulation. Presume the quota is the high fixed cost so again makes no odds if it a low or high cost system the fixed costs remain. Presume its some sort of sham like the Canadian Wheat Board.

bit like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLMFbYe7MU

bob charles

mahoney_j wrote: »

If you've a big land base and can milk loads of cows then by all means fire away with low cost xbreeds system,min meal etc.but if like me with land base around parlour you have to go the intensive high meal usage route,but crucially you have to maximise your cheapest food,grass..grow as much as you can utilise as much of ur as you can.that Canadian example is extreme and not one I'd be going for..you certainly can achieve production of 8 to 9 k Ltrs on grass and about a tonne of meal with good attention to detail and excellent grassland management

This is the problem most of the expanding farms find themselves in. No room to expand due to land restrictions. The only way to grow then, is on concrete and become a tarmac farmer to supplement your grass growth, and try and fuse the best of both worlds

delaval

bob charles wrote: »

such questions are not allowed to be posed on this site.
when land is your limiting factor its the only way to go, but also has merits in other situations. The Danish have being pushed this way due to bizarre land prices. I have being on a good few danish farms and boy do they know there business. probably a carry over from the pig side of things. But hey, your daddy didnt do this, so why change

Have to disagree about Danish dairy farmers. Must be one if the poorest paid hardest working occupations in Europe.

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

Have to disagree about Danish dairy farmers. Must be one if the poorest paid hardest working occupations in Europe.

I remember being over about 5 - 6years ago and the lads telling me the type of leverage that they were doing with there lands. the Irish developers would have being playing in the kids corner compared to what some of what these guys were on about. like buying next doors 300ac for 4 million kinda talk. madness. But boy do they make use of ever inch of there ground. If I done the same here there would be animals scratching of the corner of the house

Going forward...

The Canadians thank their lucky stars for the quota system they have. Without which, their breeding would be almost redundant.

bob charles wrote: »

This is the problem most of the expanding farms find themselves in. No room to expand due to land restrictions. The only way to grow then, is on concrete and become a tarmac farmer to supplement your grass growth, and try and fuse the best of both worlds

That soons looses its luster. Drawing silage in from all over the place and spend the rest of the year drawing slurry out.

Timmaay

Going forward... wrote: »

The Canadians thank their lucky stars for the quota system they have. Without which, their breeding would be almost redundant.

Whats the milk price over there?

delaval

bob charles wrote: »

I remember being over about 5 - 6years ago and the lads telling me the type of leverage that they were doing with there lands. the Irish developers would have being playing in the kids corner compared to what some of what these guys were on about. like buying next doors 300ac for 4 million kinda talk. madness. But boy do they make use of ever inch of there ground. If I done the same here there would be animals scratching of the corner of the house

Yea Bob and that's after a family settlement of 2million and part of this is borrowing to repay for the settlement of the last generation. It's asset based lending and nothing else, we of all nations should know the perils of such activity.

When the music stops and it will there will be a good few chairs missing

John_F

but it also exists down under, farm debt is huge, people are buying farms, paying down the interest and planning to sell the farm at retirement to pay back the balance outstanding

kowtow

I think it's interesting to reflect that dairy farming is, and always was, a basically intensive activity.

It involves a huge commitment of time, and a significant level of expertise, together with a hell of a lot of dedication and practice if you are going to be any good at it.

Having met those fundamental requirements, it's not surprising that the young, successful dairy farmers would want to expand and land is just too inflexible (in this country at least) to allow him to do so most often. I think there is a fundamental bias in dairy, whatever people say, towards high yielding, high input systems.

The next few years will tell us more, but I doubt very much that the hard working tigers of the Irish dairy industry will - when faced in a few years time with high land costs and lower ration prices - be able to hold themselves back and stick to the current gospel of Teagasc, and wait for the neighbours to die.

bob charles

kowtow wrote: »

but I doubt very much that the hard working tigers of the Irish dairy industry will - when faced in a few years time with high land costs and lower ration prices - be able to hold themselves back and stick to the current gospel of Teagasc, and wait for the neighbours to die.

The Tigers will probably be dead before the neighbours :rolleyes:

grazeaway

Find it a bit odd comparing Ireland with Canada Denmark and such places. If you want to compare then it should be with places like britan, north western France, nz. These places would have similar growing and climates. Have a bit of a intrest in the Swedish model as I would be there every now and then. It a massive country and they have big differences from the north to south. No shortage of tillage land so most herds would have a large amount of grain in the diet. They have a compulsary outdoor grazing period even though most farms are set up for zero grazing, which many see as a restriction. However in the north they have no night time from may to sept so the grass grows all the time so they have plenty of good grass or grazing. In general they have much warmer summers then use but it is mostly in the south that energy crops like beet, maize and linseed are grown. Finland is similar in that they use the summer months to grow enough fodder for the rest of the year. They realistically only have only 5 months of a growing season.