Future of dairy farming

whelan2

With milk price on the floor do you see your self continuing as you are , cutting back or expanding. Low enough borrowings here and I am used to survival mode from 2013/2014. Very disheartening to be working hard for so little return money wise. Will put off planned building until next year

blue5000

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Whelan at least you didn't get the sack for this cartoon.

Kovu any chance you could embed it, thanks.





(Do ye think I'm psychic? Cause I must be! -Kovu :P)

blue5000

Thanks kovu, can I delete the link?

mahoney_j

Another 20% expansion in cow nos planned ,stock are there and facalities in place .price for milk is disheartening as well As listening to all the naysayers .ive worked off farm for years and wouldn't go back .i love what I'm at now .

keep going

mahoney_j wrote: »

Another 20% expansion in cow nos planned ,stock are there and facalities in place .price for milk is disheartening as well As listening to all the naysayers .ive worked off farm for years and wouldn't go back .i love what I'm at now .

Yeah same as more or less.the future will be the same as the past

kowtow

keep going wrote:

Yeah same as more or less.the future will be the same as the past

Except with more certificates. They'll slap a certificate on anything now-a-days.

keep going

kowtow wrote: »

Except with more certificates. They'll slap a certificate on anything now-a-days.

Got mt bord bia cert yesterday ,12 months after inspection, wonder will do the same with my paperwork next inspection

Mulumpy

I jumped ship this year from dairy to beef. Have full time job which I love a lot more than milking cows. Cattle will only be a hobby most years but no comparison with quality of life.

Timmaay

All in all things have worked out fairly well for me, when I look back I've dodged a few bullets by keeping the head down, not jumping on every opportunity that came my way, and staying fairly debt free. Most of that was blind luck I'll admit because like you whealan I'm well use of survival mode, and we were just too stretched to try expand faster before. I'll admit to getting caught up in the whole post quota sh1te, expansion, dreaming about 200 cows etc etc, but now I know firmly that efficieny, cash flow and myown standard of living/drawings etc come before all of that. The farm here is at a much better level than it was before, I'm happy to cut back short term if the milk drops under 20c and coast on throw the next year or so, however still firmly looking at things like the tams 2, growing more grass, 1400kgMS/ha and personally I think the likes of 10k/acre purchase and 250e/acre long term leasing for land is insane, and I'll happly wait patiently for opportunity at much better value come knocking on my door moving forward rather than going chasing expansion.

Timmaay

keep going wrote: »

Got mt bord bia cert yesterday ,12 months after inspection, wonder will do the same with my paperwork next inspection

Got mine yday also! Inspection last Dec I think. Obviously doing a whole bunch together.

Sam Kade

Mulumpy wrote: »

I jumped ship this year from dairy to beef. Have full time job which I love a lot more than milking cows. Cattle will only be a hobby most years but no comparison with quality of life.

You picked the right year to jump ship, were you milking many?

browned

Prob increase the milkers by 10% for next year. Am moving to the flying herd model like a few others so while increasing the milking numbers I'll be cutting the Sr.

whelan2

Timmaay wrote: »

Got mine yday also! Inspection last Dec I think. Obviously doing a whole bunch together.

Yes 3 letters from Glanbia yesterday no Cheques in any of them

Sam Kade

Timmaay wrote: »

Got mine yday also! Inspection last Dec I think. Obviously doing a whole bunch together.

I didn't get mine yet passed the end of January.

RightTurnClyde

Going to stop expanding cow numbers. SR over 3 across the whole farm, so any expansion would be done on rented land or on higher inputs and extra labour. After 14 years expanding hard to start selling replacement stock, but that's where we are now.
Going to try and level out output at 7000L/500kgsms per cow on 1ton meal. That will give me 1500kgms/ha.
No more capex, starting to look off farm now for opportunities. Simplify the cows and KISS, are the goals now.

Alibaba

This thread got me thinking.

30 years ago when I was milking cows milk was around £1 a gallon- equates to around €.28 c / litre.

Whitehead bull calf £200 back then equates to €260 now.

Costs... Tonne of fertiliser was maybe £100 , can't remember exactly, maybe somebody knows.

All we seem to have is huge expenses with lower returns.

More regulation etc.. Some for the better.

Haven't milked cows now for 20yrs.

Didn't have the proper set up etc but no regrets.

Mulumpy

Sam Kade wrote:

You picked the right year to jump ship, were you milking many?

Was milking 64 last year plus replacements on 80 acres so sr was tight.

Sam Kade

I heard on the news that Irish farmers are paying the highest milk processing costs even higher than NZ and the Dutch and a lot of it goes to the big boys with big jobs in our co op's. Time to weed them out like the ifa.

RightTurnClyde

Sam Kade wrote: »

I heard on the news that Irish farmers are paying the highest milk processing costs even higher than NZ and the Dutch .

We have of course... And produce the lowest value product.
But once our cubicles have no roofs and the parlour now walls, we're sorted.