Tillage farming economics

denismc

I recently moved to an area where there is a lot of grain grown. While I love watching the harvest going on at the moment I just can't understand how some of these farmers are making any money.
Lots of shiney combine harvesters costing hundreds of thousands and throw in a few big tractors, you would need to be getting some serious yield to pay for it all.
Can someone explain it? There must be some serious tax breaks for investing in this gear.

blue5000

denismc wrote: »

I recently moved to an area where there is a lot of grain grown. While I love watching the harvest going on at the moment I just can't understand how some of these farmers are making any money.
Lots of shiney combine harvesters costing hundreds of thousands and throw in a few big tractors, you would need to be getting some serious yield to pay for it all.
Can someone explain it? There must be some serious tax breaks for investing in this gear.

I can't explain it either but the answer could be the basic farm payment the farmers qualified for in the early noughties. They probably are selling grain at break even or below the cost of production, but are able to live off their BFP.

mahoney_j

blue5000 wrote: »

I can't explain it either but the answer could be the basic farm payment the farmers qualified for in the early noughties. They probably are selling grain at break even or below the cost of production, but are able to live off their BFP.

That's it in a nutshell

Timmaay

blue5000 wrote: »

I can't explain it either but the answer could be the basic farm payment the farmers qualified for in the early noughties. They probably are selling grain at break even or below the cost of production, but are able to live off their BFP.

The few tillage lads I know would have a tidy enough sfp, but even still they certainly don't go wild on new machinery. It's a vicious enough hamster wheel if you get in the habit of trading in machinery regularly and end up with everything on HP etc and before you know it your chasing output just to keep the bank/hp payments met. I also know of a few tillage lads who straight up might as well be hobby farming, from proceeds of building /road land sales, no bother them having nice shiny kit anyways.

Icelandicseige

mahoney_j wrote: »

That's it in a nutshell

I'd say most have off farm job to live off of or the wife pays and puts food on the table.

If there breaking even with paying back all coop bills and machinery repayments.
And have the SFP for themselves there not living to bad as most tillage lads i know farm a lot of ground.
But I'd suspect the SFP is also going towards paying machinery bills!!

The part time boy

We could say the same about beef farmers .

Sfp keeping farming shop afloat

Dickie10

im surrounded by tillage land here they two farmers involved have BFP of 6 figures

farisfat

if brexit goes ahead we could see a big change.

Waffletraktor

Any tillage farm growing feed grains are subsidising livestock farmers and wasting their time.

kk.man

A large contractor near me told me he rented tillage ground last year. He paid the owner 150e per acre. He has no sfp. He had 3.75 ton avg yeild per acre and qualified for all the bonuses on moisture etc. The straw he sild off it made 60e per acre. He didn't factor in his machinery charges.
The grain covered the land rental and the straw was the 'profit' !

Panjandrums

This post has been deleted.

carrollsno1

Timmaay wrote: »

The few tillage lads I know would have a tidy enough sfp, but even still they certainly don't go wild on new machinery. It's a vicious enough hamster wheel if you get in the habit of trading in machinery regularly and end up with everything on HP etc and before you know it your chasing output just to keep the bank/hp payments met. I also know of a few tillage lads who straight up might as well be hobby farming, from proceeds of building /road land sales, no bother them having nice shiny kit anyways.

And heres me thinking would i be better off sell the place for development if i get it and buy a dairy farm somewhere else🀔🀔🀔 SMH

Gawddawggonnit

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Any tillage farm growing feed grains are subsidising livestock farmers and wasting their time.

In. A. Nutshell.

patsy_mccabe

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Any tillage farm growing feed grains are subsidising livestock farmers and wasting their time.

Subsidising livestock farmers.:D That's a first.

Gawddawggonnit

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Subsidising livestock farmers.:D That's a first.

Not at all Patsy. Nothing new there.

cute geoge

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Any tillage farm growing feed grains are subsidising livestock farmers and wasting their time.

This is surely apt
http://www.technocracyinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/einstein-insanity-quote.png

Waffletraktor

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Subsidising livestock farmers.:D That's a first.

What else do you call it? Feed grains are where you dump **** grain you can't blend with anything not your primary market. In the same vein as chaff is worth as much per ton as grain.

Gawddawggonnit

Waffletraktor wrote: »

What else do you call it? Feed grains are where you dump **** grain you can't blend with anything not your primary market. In the same vein as chaff is worth as much per ton as grain.

Spelt chaff makes €160+/ton...as a good source of fibre.

patsy_mccabe

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Not at all Patsy. Nothing new there.

Just laughing at the idea that beef farmers are creaming it off someone else. Don't think I ever had that feeling. But I do take your point, by the way.
I think it could be more a case of COOPs and merchants creaming it off.
Which begs the question, how do you explain the huge margin between what grain is off the combine and what the COOPs charge?

Mooooo

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Any tillage farm growing feed grains are subsidising livestock farmers and wasting their time.

A neighbouring farm is let to a tillage man told he sells most of his grain direct to farmers, would it be a case of cutting out the coop if food grade is hard to achieve?

Gawddawggonnit

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Just laughing at the idea that beef farmers are creaming it off someone else. Don't think I ever had that feeling. But I do take your point, by the way.
I think it could be more a case of COOPs and merchants creaming it off.
Which begs the question, how do you explain the huge margin between what grain is off the combine and what the COOPs charge?

Livestock farmers includes dairy, beef, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry etc etc.

The Coops and merchants simply adore the 'complete' nut/ration that's demanded by end users.
To sell direct to end users they must be able to deal with straights...

Gawddawggonnit

Mooooo wrote: »

A neighbouring farm is let to a tillage man told he sells most of his grain direct to farmers, would it be a case of cutting out the coop if food grade is hard to achieve?

There's also the problem of trying to find a home for milling wheat etc. Merchants/Coops are in no way inclined to handle the added value produce. All they want is feed grade grains that they can make massive margin on by manufacturing ration/nut.
All they would get for handling food grade produce is their handling charge...

The part time boy

Maybe I am wrong on this but I tone I getting from this tread is let's look at the foolish tillage farmer and it's his own fault for still growing grain .

Tillage farmers have it really tough last few years . Price as been very poor for last 4 years now . The only saving grace for 14 and 15 is there was bumper crops.

Last year was a night mear for lads with a lot of bills still left unpaid .

Have not heard what yeilds are like this year but the weather not playing ball .

Imange if milk was at 22 25 cent for 4 years solid . There be up roar yet the tillage men are sinking . What will happen tillage is gone in Ireland . Yes we can import feed but price will only go up . Straw will also come a challenge .

We all need tillage men to make a living so they can keep going . It's in all our interests

patsy_mccabe

I think the core issue with tillage is labour. Tillage has such a low labour requirement that one man can easily handle a large acreage. Compare that to say a dairy guy milking twice a day, no comparison. Market forces and the race to the bottom and all that. This is leading to larger and larger farm needed to return a decent wage. The scale of tillage farms in other countries is huge. Have a relative that worked on a 16,000 acre farm in Australia.

greenfield21

All tillage farmers should now be making the conversion to milk. The future is bright the future is white.

blue5000

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Just laughing at the idea that beef farmers are creaming it off someone else. Don't think I ever had that feeling. But I do take your point, by the way.
I think it could be more a case of COOPs and merchants creaming it off.
Which begs the question, how do you explain the huge margin between what grain is off the combine and what the COOPs charge?

I think we've been sold a pup, we sell whole barley to merchants at x per ton, we buy a ration with 80% bi-products and perhaps 20% rolled barley at 2x per ton, and pay carriage both ways.

I got a few bags of saw dust for bedding cattle off a sawmill. A neighour has a workshop with an oil spill on the floor. So as I was passing his gate on the way home from the sawmill last week I left a bag of sawdust at his gate.

Anyway today I was in the workshop, floor still covered in oil, and I asked the workman did they get the sawdust I left at the gate? Oh was that you he says, the other fcu*er thought it was a bag of meal that fell off a lorry and fed it to the cattle. Moral of the story cattle aren't too fussy.

Gawddawggonnit

blue5000 wrote: »

I think we've been sold a pup, we sell whole barley to merchants at x per ton, we buy a ration with 80% bi-products and perhaps 20% rolled barley at 2x per ton, and pay carriage both ways.

I got a few bags of saw dust for bedding cattle off a sawmill. A neighour has a workshop with an oil spill on the floor. So as I was passing his gate on the way home from the sawmill last week I left a bag of sawdust at his gate.

Anyway today I was in the workshop, floor still covered in oil, and I asked the workman did they get the sawdust I left at the gate? Oh was that you he says, the other fcu*er thought it was a bag of meal that fell off a lorry and fed it to the cattle. Moral of the story cattle aren't too fussy.

LMAO!!

Methinks the moral of the story is the buyers/users of feed aren't too fussy!

Keepgrowing

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

LMAO!!

Methinks the moral of the story is the buyers/users of feed aren't too fussy!

I'm not fussy and buy on price only for cows. Tbf nuts aren't a major part of their diet.

I'd have no bother paying more for grain if I thought the grower could be kept in business, these guys are essential and deserve a reasonable return

visatorro

Keepgrowing wrote: »

I'm not fussy and buy on price only for cows. Tbf nuts aren't a major part of their diet.

I'd have no bother paying more for grain if I thought the grower could be kept in business, these guys are essential and deserve a reasonable return

I've been driven out of ground I was in by a tillage farmer who now claims he's losing money every year.
Fat is in vogue now, come Christmas it could be starch found in potatoes. Tillage boys have had plenty a big pay out over the years and there'll be more. There's a couple of very good tillage boys on this forum I don't want to personally offend but I have very little sympathy for tillage farmers. I believe most dairy men don't wish harm or poverty on tillage boyos, as long as they keep tipping along and don't start bidding crazy money for ground again.

Dickie10

why what reasons will brexit make a differnece to tillage men?

Wishbone Ash

denismc wrote: »

I recently moved to an area where there is a lot of grain grown. While I love watching the harvest going on at the moment I just can't understand how some of these farmers are making any money.
Lots of shiney combine harvesters costing hundreds of thousands and throw in a few big tractors, you would need to be getting some serious yield to pay for it all.
Can someone explain it? There must be some serious tax breaks for investing in this gear.

I was just wondering the same thing as a friend of mine just bought a new combine this year. He's a full time farmer with small children and I don't think his wife works outside the home. He only harvests his own crop (no contracting) and cereals only form part of his tillage operation as he also does potatoes and general veg.

Gawddawggonnit

visatorro wrote: »

I've been driven out of ground I was in by a tillage farmer who now claims he's losing money every year.
Fat is in vogue now, come Christmas it could be starch found in potatoes. Tillage boys have had plenty a big pay out over the years and there'll be more. There's a couple of very good tillage boys on this forum I don't want to personally offend but I have very little sympathy for tillage farmers. I believe most dairy men don't wish harm or poverty on tillage boyos, as long as they keep tipping along and don't start bidding crazy money for ground again.

Lol.
'Boyos' drove you out of 'your' ground...ffs!

Why didn't you get all 'Torro McCabe' on him and run him outta town??

These 'Boyos' just don't know their place!...(which is 'tipping along' and always being the underbidder).





After 30yrs of a protected market, followed by continued market support for your milk, and a strong price at present...and you still can't compete for land against the Boyos...something's gotta be done to put those hoors back in their box!!!!

blue5000

visatorro wrote: »

I've been driven out of ground I was in by a tillage farmer who now claims he's losing money every year.
Fat is in vogue now, come Christmas it could be starch found in potatoes. Tillage boys have had plenty a big pay out over the years and there'll be more. There's a couple of very good tillage boys on this forum I don't want to personally offend but I have very little sympathy for tillage farmers. I believe most dairy men don't wish harm or poverty on tillage boyos, as long as they keep tipping along and don't start bidding crazy money for ground again.

I found the answer, layers of manure; http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/tillage/digging-deeper-why-these-award-winning-tillage-farmers-decided-against-dairy-35962699.html

ganmo

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

I was just wondering the same thing as a friend of mine just bought a new combine this year. He's a full time farmer with small children and I don't think his wife works outside the home. He only harvests his own crop (no contracting) and cereals only form part of his tillage operation as he also does potatoes and general veg.

It's a question of what combine had he before and how many acres is he running.

Mooooo

It's there own business really, who knows what anyone's situation is. I assume there are tillage groups as well, if so prob best to join one or go visit other farmers and operations to see what they are at and see if any stuff can be done at home then. Everyone can only play the hand they're dealt as best they can

visatorro

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Lol.
'Boyos' drove you out of 'your' ground...ffs!

Why didn't you get all 'Torro McCabe' on him and run him outta town??

These 'Boyos' just don't know their place!...(which is 'tipping along' and always being the underbidder).





After 30yrs of a protected market, followed by continued market support for your milk, and a strong price at present...and you still can't compete for land against the Boyos...something's gotta be done to put those hoors back in their box!!!!

No need for sarcasm now!
When someone offers triple the rent your paying and then cries poverty it's hard for me to sympathise.

Waffletraktor

I donno, all these highly profitable dairy farms which seem to have all the grant funding and research targeted to give a leg up, requiring EU rescue the first time a price drops post 'freedom' to avoid salty tears in the morning wheetabix would do well to worry about their own calculators than others,

Gawddawggonnit

Waffletraktor wrote: »

I donno, all these highly profitable dairy farms which seem to have all the grant funding and research targeted to give a leg up, requiring EU rescue the first time a price drops post 'freedom' to avoid salty tears in the morning wheetabix would do well to worry about their own calculators than others,

Ahhh that's why big Phil came riding to the rescue...he prefers milk with his weetabix!!


Harvest nearly finished?

GrasstoMilk

Waffletraktor wrote: »

I donno, all these highly profitable dairy farms which seem to have all the grant funding and research targeted to give a leg up, requiring EU rescue the first time a price drops post 'freedom' to avoid salty tears in the morning wheetabix would do well to worry about their own calculators than others,

I seem to remember it was other eu countries who were crying for support. Namely the ones on the continent

Waffletraktor

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

I seem to remember it was other eu countries who were crying for support. Namely the ones on the continent

And was there any mention of an argument against from the dairy sector here(bar 1 or 2 here). Why didn't the tillage farms out west not money thrown at them when their years income pretty much got washed away... Could you imagine the floods of tears coming from the dairy sheds of ireland if something was to happen that caused their annual supply to be mosty rejected on collection.
It's like these tillage grants targeted at the expensive toys beyonds alot of farmers, gps controlled sprayers etc.. Why can't the dairy grants stipulate the use of robots. 2 birds one stone towards eliminating this labour shortage that requires the new training course for cheap labour dairy farmers despite being pronounced as the future and highly profitable are unable to attract with current wages?

Irish Beef

greenfield21 wrote: »

All tillage farmers should now be making the conversion to milk. The future is bright the future is white.

Can the dairy industry real support all this extra supply and keep a good price, all these guys converting from Tillage and sucklers to milk. Why was the quota there for so long at all. Surly the COOPs are just trying to get as many in as possible to get supply up so they can pull prices, That's the way it is in any other business once it looks attractive and people get into it supply goes up and prices come down, I've never seen it any other way. I know people will argue the market is expanding across Europe and china but so to is the supply. Its just something I don't understand, I know so many who have got into dairy over the last couple years and invested heavily in the business, Will it be able to hold a decent price.

GrasstoMilk

Waffletraktor wrote: »

And was there any mention of an argument against from the dairy sector here(bar 1 or 2 here). Why didn't the tillage farms out west not money thrown at them when their years income pretty much got washed away... Could you imagine the floods of tears coming from the dairy sheds of ireland if something was to happen that caused their annual supply to be mosty rejected on collection.
It's like these tillage grants targeted at the expensive toys beyonds alot of farmers, gps controlled sprayers etc.. Why can't the dairy grants stipulate the use of robots. 2 birds one stone towards eliminating this labour shortage that requires the new training course for cheap labour dairy farmers despite being pronounced as the future and highly profitable are unable to attract with current wages?

iirc the tillage guys are getting some form of support. 5009€ across the lot. Also the big SFPs are mainly to tillage farmers.
Robots don't suit every farm. Wouldn't be too keen on one here

The part time boy

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

iirc the tillage guys are getting some form of support. 5009€ across the lot.

Not 100 % in what your trying to say but if it's that all tillage farmers are getting €5009 each then that untrue

visatorro

Did George Bush give hand outs to US grain boys a few years ago to win votes?

darragh_haven

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

iirc the tillage guys are getting some form of support. 5009€ across the lot. Also the big SFPs are mainly to tillage farmers.
Robots don't suit every farm. Wouldn't be too keen on one here

I could list out 20 dairy farmer within 20 miles if me getting €50k+ in their SFP. So the big payments are going to the dairy sector too.

Timmaay

darragh_haven wrote: »

I could list out 20 dairy farmer within 20 miles if me getting €50k+ in their SFP. So the big payments are going to the dairy sector too.

Not trying to argue here ha, but can't say I know one dairy farmer out of the 30 or so local to me with a payment anything near 50k, the only dairyfarmers that did reasonable out of the CAP had a tidy beef enterprise on the side. The few tillage lads I know with large payments do have the acres, and do produce the output to justify their payment in fairness. Every village has the 2 or 3 lads totally playing the system and just farming entitlements though.

Waffletraktor

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

iirc the tillage guys are getting some form of support. 5009€ across the lot. Also the big SFPs are mainly to tillage farmers.
Robots don't suit every farm. Wouldn't be too keen on one here

Jaysus you'd want to watch that, don't want to become one of these highly profitable dairy farms with a severe labour shortage in the future. A robot parlour nearly sounds ideal to farmers problems.
No just the guys that had their years work washed away. I guess it might go towards one years finance on debts incured? I'd hazard a guess later years 30 years of protection has served the closed shop dairy industry members better than sfp ever did, give it a few years without the safety net of intervention every time prices drop.
It's abit like when dairy farmers will be told to put in habitat focus areas on their farms as rye grass monopasture isn't much use to wildlife only cattle and lowland sheep.

Waffletraktor

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Harvest nearly finished?

Nearly, would go a long way towards buying a 3 bed semi-d house for drying costs though.

darragh_haven

Timmaay wrote: »

Not trying to argue here ha, but can't say I know one dairy farmer out of the 30 or so local to me with a payment anything near 50k, the only dairyfarmers that did reasonable out of the CAP had a tidy beef enterprise on the side. The few tillage lads I know with large payments do have the acres, and do produce the output to justify their payment in fairness. Every village has the 2 or 3 lads totally playing the system and just farming entitlements though.

Oh i know, I'm not trying to start a sh1t storm either. But saying tillage farmers have high payments while the poor dairy farmer get only enough for a pint or 2 at the weekend is just wrong. Its all about how each individual played the entitlements system from their creation.

2 cattle dealers locally have well in excess of €120k because they played the system. It was seen as a bit of a gamble at the time but it worked out. My view of them ranges from admiration to jealousy.:)

Id know about 9 of the 20 personally. And the reason everyone knows the payments is because of the publication of the payments and there was nothing but talk of it for a few weeks. 4 of the 9 I know, were mixed enterprises until quota went. The other 5 have been intensive dairy since I've been a chap.

I think that tillage men should be getting as much support as possible. Is there crop insurance available like there is in North America.?

blue5000

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Nearly, would go a long way towards buying a 3 bed semi-d house for drying costs though.

What were yields and MC like? Our spring barley got a bit of a hammering on Friday.

K.G.

Jaysus lads ye are right roll with some of the stuff in this thread.is the tillage game like all farm systems,a few guys good at what they do and making money,a few guys milking the system and ticking over and few guys making a b#ll#cks of it for everyone and going broke