Cost of production v Price for product??

Western Pomise

Up at this early hour after helping a neighbour calve a cow...while we were waiting on her to progress a bit we had a chat over a cup of tea.
Gist of conversation was how both Cattle and sheep (only Agri we do) are good at mo but 'sure wouldn't they want to be at the price of fert,meal etc etc.
I told him how I remember selling good quality Suffolk x store lambs for 98 pound in August 1995.Sold similiar lambs this year for 85 to 90 EURO.
That's 20 years ago and 98 pound would be a lot of euro spending power wise!

So are we really only farming to standstill with returns we get?
Interested to hear other people's views,esp older posters who have seen the likes of times in 1980's where interest rates on loans to buy land were well over 20% pa!

_Brian

But it's ok, we've all read the articles from Teqgasc telling us to be more efficient in production.

sea12

95 pound in August 1995. Was that at the height of the BSE crisis? Don't remember them being that good. On your general point though I would agree. Inflation is eating away at the return on farming. Prices not keeping in line with inputs.

All we are ever told is how much the worlds population is growing. Food prices should be going up in real terms not down but it's not working that way

Base price

Western Promise - I had a meeting with the accountant yesterday and during the course of the conversation we started talking about the very subject.
Dug out an old journal from 1987 and here are some prices/costs from that time. There is costs for fert and sprays for barley/wheat but I have no quantities.
Car tax £56.50 (Ford Escort from memory)
Car insurance £480 FBD
Mowing costs for hay - 22 acres £210
9/6/87 Went to mart - Bull calves up to £320 for strong SM & CH. Bullocks making £70/cwt.
Tractor Insurance IH884 with FBD - £46.50
Sold 25 round bales of hay 5'x4' - £10 each
AI - WDO £11.50, AS37 £12.50, BA9 repeat £1
Bought 125 silage bags for -£1.68 each.
Sold a BWH bull 350kgs - £453
Bought FR bull calf - £165, Twin SIM bulls £115 each.
£100 for two U2 tickets.
Sold an old working Universal tractor for £800
Roundup 5l - £95
BA heifer to factory graded R3 @ .98p/lb = £847
New galvanised round bale feeder - £90 after a lot of bargaining
1984 Peugeot 305D van - £2790
2 LMx heifers to factory - .98p/lb averaged £498 each
Bottle of Youngs Pouron - £25
500kg of 18% crunch collected -£80
Sold old square bale (New Holland) - £490

In the early/mid 90's when the interest rates rocketed, I remember the mortgage repayments went from a manageable £350 odd per month to over £580.
Here is a pic from 1990 from the Farming Indo:

Bullocks

Base price wrote: »

I had a meeting with the accountant yesterday and during the course of the conversation we started talking about the very subject.
Dug out an old journal from 1987 and here are some prices/costs from that time. There is costs for fert and sprays for barley/wheat but I have no quantities.
Car tax £56.50 (Ford Escort from memory)
Car insurance £480 FBD
Mowing costs for hay - 22 acres £210
9/6/87 Went to mart - Bull calves up to £320 for strong SM & CH. Bullocks making £70/cwt.
Tractor Insurance IH884 with FBD - £46.50
Sold 25 round bales of hay 5'x4' - £10 each
AI - WDO £11.50, AS37 £12.50, BA9 repeat £1
Bought 125 silage bags for -£1.68 each.
Sold a BWH bull 350kgs - £453
Bought FR bull calf - £165, Twin SIM bulls £115 each.
£100 for two U2 tickets.
Sold an old working Universal tractor for £800
Roundup 5l - £95
BA heifer to factory graded R3 @ .98p/lb = £847
New galvanised round bale feeder - £90 after a lot of bargaining
1984 Peugeot 305D van - £2790
2 LMx heifers to factory - .98p/lb averaged £498 each
Bottle of Youngs Pouron - £25
500kg of 18% crunch collected -£80
Sold old square bale (New Holland) - £490

In the early/mid 90's when the interest rates rocketed, I remember the mortgage repayments went from a manageable £350 odd per month to over £580.
Here is a pic from 1990 from the Farming Indo:

I love them clips from the past BP , keep them coming if you have anymore ! FBD were doing alright back then aswell

Base price

Bullocks wrote: »

I love them clips from the past BP , keep them coming if you have anymore ! FBD were doing alright back then aswell

I have more journals from those years but I think (hope) that they are in storage in the attic. I must venture up there sometime and have a look. I also have earlier journal/receipts (in my Mam's house) from when I bought my first calves in 1978
Hopefully the mice have not shredded everything :eek:

Base price

After reading my journal and posting on here, the one thing that did surprise me was the fact that I paid £165 for a FR bull calf.
Maybe someone can enlighten me on what the equivalent is nowdays but it seems a lot at the time. He must have be a beaut
The only thing that I can think off that was different at the time he was either pb British FR or maybe 25% Holstein. In those days Holsteins were fairly new in the country.

Dawggone

Base price wrote: »

Roundup 5l - £95:

Jeezus I'd forgotten.
Thanks Base price.

Base price

Dawggone wrote: »

Jeezus I'd forgotten.
Thanks Base price.

Ah, auld age is kicking in
BTW the variety of spring barley that we sowed that year was called Grit.
1989 was the last year that we grew barley and wheat about 30 acres of each. I think the late 80's was the demise of true mixed farming in NCD.

Base price

Apologies to the Mods for digging up this old post (delete if necessary) but I came across an old diary while helping my Sister in the epic task of sorting through my stuff in Mam's house.

There are more diaries sitting in repose in the attic (in mine) but I will have to wait until eldest comes home in a few weeks from Aus to retrieve them.

Willfarman

Base price wrote: »

Ah, auld age is kicking in
BTW the variety of spring barley that we sowed that year was called Grit.
1989 was the last year that we grew barley and wheat about 30 acres of each. I think the late 80's was the demise of true mixed farming in NCD.

Were you buying a 10 and 22 month subsidy in the bargain at that time?

Base price

Willfarman wrote: »

Were you buying a 10 and 22 month subsidy in the bargain at that time?

Yes we drew whatever subs we could at the time. Some of the cows used to have a lot of twins in those days too

alps

Bass.....5 bales of hay for a U2 ticket...

U2 would make some money this year..