The poor farmer hypocrisy

worded

Farmer told me 30 years ago - there is money in muck ! For some but probably not all these days

I envy your commute time, and most of you are self employed and are own bosses

Many negatives, but farming definitely has its positives over 9-5 wage slaves commuting 2-4 hours a day

I’m running for the nearest gate now with y’all with your pitch forks !

orchard farm

the plus i always saw was that theoretically you could make as money as you want with farming just depends on how hard you want to work,or you could just look at the glass half empty and a negitive attitute never made a possitive profit,some people love havin the beal bocht instead of gettin off their arse and change their situation

worded

orchard farm wrote: »

the plus i always saw was that theoretically you could make as money as you want with farming just depends on how hard you want to work,or you could just look at the glass half empty and a negitive attitute never made a possitive profit,some people love havin the beal bocht instead of gettin off their arse and change their situation

Consider using a glass 50% smaller, then it will be a full glass

Also if you use a straw, you can avoid using a glass all together ... it more eco friendlier also


Ah jebus I’m being ran at now with the electric shock anti bull thingy and someone else has a stick that was used to agitate the slurry tank ....

Running for life I am

Dakota Dan

mikefoxo wrote: »

Brother was working down in west Cork last year for a bit. Lot of dairy lads all playing 'keeping up with the Joneses'. In a way it was good, they were all trying to be super efficent (reseeding, lime, profit monitor etc.), but they were also going around in brand new machines. Except for one lad. He had a two wheel drive tractor, a fertiliser spreader and not much else and he was making the most out of the lot of them

Where did he get all their financial information, discussion group? Last year wasn't the best for dairying with low milk price.

Willfarman

The average net income for dairy farmers was still over €50000 according to teagasc....

Bass Reeves

Dakota Dan wrote: »

Where did he get all their financial information, discussion group? Last year wasn't the best for dairying with low milk price.

It was not as bad for many as taught. As quota's were gone it allowed farmers to supply as much milk as they could produce off grass. Grass growing conditions were excellent and the autumn was fairy dry except for September. Because of this incomes held up fairly well.

kerry cow

Well what do ye make of the retiring teagasc man who recently said all suckler cow farms should be planted as they are un viable and a plantation would have the double effect of helping our emission gases

Grueller

kerry cow wrote: »

Well what do ye make of the retiring teagasc man who recently said all suckler cow farms should be planted as they are un viable and a plantation would have the double effect of helping our emission gases

And what about our tillage brethren who are also completely unviable without the eu envelope as well.

Dickie10

i think there is no future for suckler farms in many areas of the country. vast areas of lietrim,sligo,cavan,donegal,mayo,galway should be planted. the future for suckling is probably suckler to beef, finish all your own stock. maybe beef farmers may even go down the route of co operative meat factories and have a business intrest in their own processing etc. tillage is surely a non runner west of the shannon and for most of the smaller tillage men its a loss making exercise. I live beside a few smaller tillage farms all between 200-500 acres these would make very viable beef,sheeo or dairy farms the bigger ones could prob have all three viable systems but the men involved wont do anything other than drive machines so they plough on. i know for definite if payments stopped in the morning these tillage farms would be unviable.

farawaygrass

If the suckler herd died out in Ireland, would Ireland be short of beef? Probably not. I think the one reason for the government not to let it die out is because the farming families-the structure of rural Ireland would change drastically.

Dickie10

no pun intended with the "plough on" !!!

tanko

Dickie10 wrote: »

i think there is no future for suckler farms in many areas of the country. vast areas of lietrim,sligo,cavan,donegal,mayo,galway should be planted. the future for suckling is probably suckler to beef, finish all your own stock. maybe beef farmers may even go down the route of co operative meat factories and have a business intrest in their own processing etc. tillage is surely a non runner west of the shannon and for most of the smaller tillage men its a loss making exercise. I live beside a few smaller tillage farms all between 200-500 acres these would make very viable beef,sheeo or dairy farms the bigger ones could prob have all three viable systems but the men involved wont do anything other than drive machines so they plough on. i know for definite if payments stopped in the morning these tillage farms would be unviable.

Only a Meath man could make such a statement!!!!!
200-500 acre farms are small.
I dunno what you've been drinking all day but i need some of it.

On a serious note, Simon Coveney was asked what he was going to do for suckler farmers at a meeting in Cavan a few years ago, he replied that sucklers were an inefficent use of land.

charolais0153

tanko wrote: »

Only a Meath man could make such a statement!!!!!
200-500 acre farms are small.
I dunno what you've been drinking all day but i need some of it.

On a serious note, Simon Coveney was asked what he was going to do for suckler farmers at a meeting in Cavan a few years ago, he replied that sucklers were an inefficent use of land.

And only a cork man could say what coveney said !

Feckoffcup

Suckler farming will never die out
200-500 is not a small farm, 40 acres is.

charolais0153

Feckoffcup wrote: »

Suckler farming will never die out
200-500 is not a small farm, 40 acres is.

Floki

charolais0153 wrote: »

And only a cork man could say what coveney said !

In fairness now if ye keep with the poor mouth and if teagasc keep doing those yearly farm comparisons (including a one suckler farmer with a 150 cow farmer ) and averaging out the whole lot together to give an average income of 5k per farmer or worse maybe a loss and then the anti farming save the planet crowd use this information against ye....who's to blame?

charolais0153

Floki wrote: »

In fairness now if ye keep with the poor mouth and if teagasc keep doing those yearly farm comparisons (including a one suckler farmer with a 150 cow farmer ) and averaging out the whole lot together to give an average income of 5k per farmer or worse maybe a loss and then the anti farming save the planet crowd use this information against ye....who's to blame?

Sucklers might be unprofitable but that hardly means that they're inefficient

kerry cow

Suckler and tillage are unprofitable in a no bfp system .
The suckler herd is contributing to the green house gases and by removing them and planting the land it has a double balancing effect .
And yes suckler farming is not a necessity as there are plenty of dairy beef calves .

Dakota Dan

kerry cow wrote: »

Suckler and tillage are unprofitable in a no bfp system .
The suckler herd is contributing to the green house gases and by removing them and planting the land it has a double balancing effect .
And yes suckler farming is not a necessity as there are plenty of dairy beef calves .

So where will they keep the dairy beef calves if the land is planted?

Dickie10

sorry i meant tillage farmers , any tillage farmer with between 150 acres and 500 acres between rented and owned wouldnt be what id call a big farmer. surely if you are at tillage ith the price of machines etc you couldnt do any less than 500 acres a year? one of the lads next door has 340 acres in the block, it would be a great dairy farm ,i dont know how many cows you would milk on it,all dry land, but dosent burn up in summer, so heavy tillage land. but he rents about 500 acres between south meath and north kildare. my neighbour was at tillage on his 80 acre farm, he gave it up for 10 year lease to a dairy man. he milks around 400 cows and grows his maize on the land beside me. i definitly not saying a dairy or beef farm between 200 -500 acres is small. tillage is different ball game

Floki

charolais0153 wrote: »

Sucklers might be unprofitable but that hardly means that they're inefficient

You must mean efficient with time.

I don't think the greenies care how quick you get your work done and what time you make it back to the pub. All they care about is the black and white figures that teagasc give them. If they see that cattle farming is unprofitable in Ireland then happy days get rid of cattle farming.

Cattle farmers need to get smart in this and explain about cattle farmers do make money for themselves, processing jobs, retail, teagasc, fert, esb, farm machinery companies, etc, etc, etc.

Explain how cattle and grassland takes in more carbon than forestry and grassland needs cattle to help sequester more carbon than grassland alone.
Explain how biochar can be used with cattle manure to kickstart a process of making black terra preta super carbon soaking land.
Explain how biochar can be made from the solid portion of dung left over from the process of anaerobic digestors as well as waste timber from the forestry sectors.
Explain how the charcoal can be used as bedding in loose housing or in cubicles.
Explain how cattle are a fundamental part in making land super carbon black soaking land and how the dung is needed as a catalyst for the process.

If you go along with the woe is me and I can't make a living out of this. Ye''re fcuked.

Willfarman

kerry cow wrote: »

Well what do ye make of the retiring teagasc man who recently said all suckler cow farms should be planted as they are un viable and a plantation would have the double effect of helping our emission gases

He is no back of a clock and you are misquoting him there. He made a lot of valid points.

patsy_mccabe

kerry cow wrote: »

.... The suckler herd is contributing to the green house gases and by removing them and planting the land it has a double balancing effect .
And yes suckler farming is not a necessity as there are plenty of dairy beef calves .

So what you are saying is, a Dairy system where young calves, a few hours old, are wrenched away from their crying mothers, is far better than the natural Suckler system, where the cows are free to raise their young in a natural loving environment.


I rest my case, your honour! :rolleyes:

Markcheese

There's parts of a lot of farms that would be way better off planted, and the payment system should be tweaked to make it pay lads to do the work themselves...
Sucklers Are only worthwhile with a grant or on ranches...
But if lads want to keep them then Good luck to them...

Floki

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

So what you are saying is, a Dairy system where young calves, a few hours old, are wrenched away from their crying mothers, is far better than the natural Suckler system, where the cows are free to raise their young in a natural, loving environment.


I rest my case, your honour! :rolleyes:

I propose we ban Patsy McCabe for being influenced by vegan propoganda when he should know better and turning on dairy farming just because a Kerry cow is upsetting him. When said vegans also want to ban patsy's way of life.

(Codding of course).;)

Waffletraktor

Grueller wrote: »

And what about our tillage brethren who are also completely unviable without the eu envelope as well.

*Any tillage farm growing any feed grade crops subsididsing livestock farmers are going broke you mean.

tomwaterford

tanko wrote: »

Only a Meath man could make such a statement!!!!!
200-500 acre farms are small.
I dunno what you've been drinking all day but i need some of it.

On a serious note, Simon Coveney was asked what he was going to do for suckler farmers at a meeting in Cavan a few years ago, he replied that sucklers were an inefficent use of land.

Tbf If they can only graze for <6 months of the year in large tracts of the country it's not exactly efficent? ?


Farm at home here is very wet and the returns would never justify building housing requireď nowadays??

Waffletraktor

Floki wrote: »

I propose we ban Patsy McCabe for being influenced by vegan propoganda when he should know better and turning on dairy farming just because a Kerry cow is upsetting him. When said vegans also want to ban patsy's way of life.

(Codding of course).;)

You'll all be growing organic veg and cereals with robots in the end then. Or planting tree's.

Who2

When Ireland is covered in black and whites will the argument of turning the whole country into one big data center or business park become the new fight sure aren't they making more per square inch than any acre of dairy ground. There must be a serious shortage of dairy products worldwide if we can convert all suitable farms into dairy and still see it profitable.

Cavanjack

When lads quit paying over the odds for bad friesian bulls the whole thing will sort itself out. Dairy farmers will all start using Sexed semen and it will mean no more narrow friesian bull calves
. Every dairy farmer will use an aa or hr bull to mop up. The lads in the west that are losing money at suckling will give up and rear these calves and they'll be sold as stores to the lads in the east to finish. The only lads that'll remain at suckling will be those producing u/e grade calves for export.