Greenfield kilkenny

Mooooo

visatorro wrote: »

Sorry Mooooo could you explain what you mean regarding having no debt?
Would having a healthy balance sheet regardless of the size of your business and amount of debt not be worth taking into account.

It would but What I was giving out about above is that processors are going to have to realise there will have to be enough of a return for the farmer to live and to service debt/ develop and maintain the farm

K.G.

Met my bank rep by chance the other day so i asked him how were things going.he said loans are paying away fine but a slow down in fellas looking for money.heard the other day that the fella in shinagh gurteen farm is finishing up and is going back into education(that s the share milker farm).throw Greenfield with that and the picture is becoming clearer that the steam is going out of the milking game and fellas are realizing it isnt easy money afterall

Wildsurfer

Is that Kevin on the main Shinagh farm or the lad on the second unit they started? Dont buy that the steam is going out of Dairy at all at all. The big farming families are still taking on more and more farms in Kildare, Roscommon etc, 3rd and 4th units at this stage. Lots of conversions too in previously tillage & beef areas. Greenfields isnt going back into tillage you know, still going to be a large dairy farm, probably with much better facilities being planned.

Bass Reeves

The issue with a lot of dairy expansion was that it was based on the premise the more cows you milk the more profit. However often different skill sets are required the bigger you get. As you expand into more cows, it equates to more work labour management becomes key.

The bigger you get the more work you have to contact out. Contracting out is as efficient as hiring labour but lots of lads fail to see that. Beyond 80 cows unless super efficient with contactors and an excellent set up you will need extra labour.

Too many lads expanding taught they could do it all themselves. After you hit a certain limit you are often better off setting up a second unit but that takes a different skillset and you become more of a manager than a dairy farmer. Lots of expansion where it was carried out on the home farm was based on upping cows/HA on the milking platform and renting/leasing extra land for silage and young stock. Often fragmented it means longer days and a poor lifestyle.

Often because of the tax system lads expand rather than choosing lifestyle and paying tax. The new landcruiser every 10 years rather than the good car every 5 years. New machinery rather than holidays, working every Saturday and Sunday rather than see the young lads playing a match.

Lifestyle choices come at a cost you can retire at 60 but your pension will be smaller than retiring at 65 and even if its the same( a nurse or a teacher) you lose out on 5 years pay at some of your highest earning years.

Lads expanding and paying 3-400+/acre for land including farm payments or maybe not including them often have not the sums done on extra labour or contractor charges involved. Johnny down the road si doing it. He must be making money with his new tractor and landcruiser I can as well. Next thing the failure to include for labour and contractor charges finds you spreading all your own slurry, cutting your own hedges, drawing bales silage from hear there and everywhere and milking cows seven days a week. Same as some of the stupid beef farmers but they are not milking cows every day.

Willfarman

I enjoyed that bass, however I thing the free labor element of family farming is the difference between large scale or moderate scale dairying. A lot of aul mammies minding the calves still and aul lads to herd cattle or even milk the cows if need be.

K.G.

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Is that Kevin on the main Shinagh farm or the lad on the second unit they started? Dont buy that the steam is going out of Dairy at all at all. The big farming families are still taking on more and more farms in Kildare, Roscommon etc, 3rd and 4th units at this stage. Lots of conversions too in previously tillage & beef areas. Greenfields isnt going back into tillage you know, still going to be a large dairy farm, probably with much better facilities being planned.

Maybe so but id say you can measure the fellas anxious for that stuff in hundreds whereas the people that saying steady as she goes are in their thousands. Not that they are closing up shop just not chasing hard
Yeah kevin still in place