French farming

Icelandicseige

How does French dairy farming compare to here??. Are they grass based or high inputs farms? do they get in or around the same price for milk as here? Do they receive BFP ?
Curious to know what's the major difference from dairy farming Ireland and France?

carrollsno1

Icelandicseige wrote: »

How does French dairy farming compare to here??. Are they grass based or high inputs farms? do they get in or around the same price for milk as here? Do they receive BFP ?
Curious to know what's the major difference from dairy farming Ireland and France?

Had 2 french students work with me on a farm before in different seasons. one farm they hadnt 30 cows, big monties for the showring up in the hills and producing there own cheese, altough it reared a family this girl reckoned she couldnt return farming there to support 2 families IIRC these were milking AYR and they had to import feed from another region to feed the stock as they were up in such a high altitude they had heavy snows in the winter and suffered droughts in the summer too.

The 2nd one was from normandy i think and was operating an indoor system using mainly holsteins normande and introducing jerseys most of his friends that were over were running a similar system to his only more holstein. These boys were big into keeping poultry as well, they weren't happy with milk price but were optimistic due to the exodus of farmers the year before. They were very interested in robots too and got to see one in operation on a grass based system here sonething he was interested in focusing more on due to higher costs and due to being f#cked from milking cows already.

I do believe i heard that brittany is a climate similar to our own maybe even wetter and there is seasonal milk being produced there. I also remember there was an irish farmer farming in france that used to post here (could still be here) and he was saying how the organic cows were kept indoors AYR and fed organic feed whether thats changed or not i dont know.

If you see the french farmers protesting they mean business not like us where we stand around gossiping at a factory gate. As far as i know they get a bit more sympathy off the general public as they are not recieving huge payments like us here. I suppose this also may justify there extreme protesting to an extent too

Nekarsulm

Just from driving through Normandy, the usage of maize must be massive.
It sometimes seems life 25% of the land is in maize.

Nekarsulm

https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffrance3-regions.francetvinfo.fr%2Foccitanie%2Ftarn%2Falbi%2Fagriculteurs-tarnais-abattent-arbres-contre-suppression-zones-defavorisees-1401903.html&h=ATPNhqnoEYiG9PEZdv9d_4_j3nMx4PxAqmM5FAuqThDhdaMqEtb2p6SptQ97hPZSuYU2aUvQw_h6x_IWJoeiDi39dOjeexfJykAwPecVvzXpfVh7JTsDClkcuzu3JR6i5LBEi_wJ&enc=AZOVtyWKe_VSMOStIGe73ttqZ0G9Zvzui-FK-63F9zeQW0FoZ6kXSf1raCqvodxq63kDrTZXe9wPkB9MBvao1vbet6CBogLkmZtI0izfZ0UgwEVronmXN5IXbMq-B1TJmzxuG7Bgc9yq8ircm93glWBp0N49oZYmfG-6l8tT0wp7Mw&s=1

When the French minister for agri. suggested redrawing the disadvantaged area boundaries, farmers took direct action and felled 5 trees across the local D92 route to get their message across!

20silkcut

carrollsno1 wrote: »

Icelandicseige wrote: »

How does French dairy farming compare to here??. Are they grass based or high inputs farms? do they get in or around the same price for milk as here? Do they receive BFP ?
Curious to know what's the major difference from dairy farming Ireland and France?

Had 2 french students work with me on a farm before in different seasons. one farm they hadnt 30 cows, big monties for the showring up in the hills and producing there own cheese, altough it reared a family this girl reckoned she couldnt return farming there to support 2 families IIRC these were milking AYR and they had to import feed from another region to feed the stock as they were up in such a high altitude they had heavy snows in the winter and suffered droughts in the summer too.

The 2nd one was from normandy i think and was operating an indoor system using mainly holsteins normande and introducing jerseys most of his friends that were over were running a similar system to his only more holstein. These boys were big into keeping poultry as well, they weren't happy with milk price but were optimistic due to the exodus of farmers the year before. They were very interested in robots too and got to see one in operation on a grass based system here sonething he was interested in focusing more on due to higher costs and due to being f#cked from milking cows already.

I do believe i heard that brittany is a climate similar to our own maybe even wetter and there is seasonal milk being produced there. I also remember there was an irish farmer farming in france that used to post here (could still be here) and he was saying how the organic cows were kept indoors AYR and fed organic feed whether thats changed or not i dont know.

If you see the french farmers protesting they mean business not like us where we stand around gossiping at a factory gate. As far as i know they get a bit more sympathy off the general public as they are not recieving huge payments like us here. I suppose this also may justify there extreme protesting to an extent too

Surely they get the same subsidies as the average farmer here gets.

Nekarsulm

20silkcut wrote: »

Surely they get the same subsidies as the average farmer here gets.

In the link I posted, it claims that being in the Disadvantaged Area is worth, on average, 10,000 euro per farmer in the Tarn region.

CelticRambler

Icelandicseige wrote: »

How does French dairy farming compare to here??. Are they grass based or high inputs farms? do they get in or around the same price for milk as here? Do they receive BFP ?
Curious to know what's the major difference from dairy farming Ireland and France?

Milk here was around 340€/tonne in the middle of last year. Most dairy herds never see the light of day (that goes for the goats too); fields are for beef cattle and cereals. You do get more out-door herds in Normandy and Brittany, probably because the Breton farmers can't afford the sheds! :pac: But that'll change, as the latest fashion is to lease a few hundred sq.m of ground to the solar electric companies, who build a shed on it and roof it with solar panels. You can then do what you like with the space underneath.

Otherwise, dairy farming in France is crippled by all the same problems as any other type of business in this country (i.e. France, where I am ) and above all by an unwillingness to do anything different especially when everything starts to fall apart. Although I'm a half a generation removed from my family's dairy farming, I look over nostalgically at Ireland, and how you guys find ways of overcoming the challenges.

carrollsno1 wrote: »

If you see the french farmers protesting they mean business not like us where we stand around gossiping at a factory gate. As far as i know they get a bit more sympathy off the general public as they are not recieving huge payments like us here. I suppose this also may justify there extreme protesting to an extent too

Nah, they've worn out their sympathy with the public. Too many stories of polluted watercourses killing off inshore shellfish supplies, and then annoying hard-up ordinary French folk who struggle to make ends meet by publicly pouring tanker-loads of milk down the drain. :mad: Spraying the local supermarket with slurry is also a great way to bond with your customers ... not! :rolleyes:

While some farming challenges are outside the control of farmers (e.g. having to pay a labourer twice the amount that he gets to take home, not being able to sack him when he's fecked up for the fourteenth time in a month, and having to pay your own PRSI-equivalent on the money you didn't make today, just because you got out of bed and did a day's work :mad: ) the dairy industry is a perfect example of what's wrong with French industry.

In the most recent dispute (in which urban slurry spreading played a big role) the key argument against the creameries and supermarkets was "we can't live on the price you're paying us, you have to pay us more, because we're worth it". Only they're not, and neither is their bog-standard-average product (that goes for an awful lot of French produce). In the end, the dairies agreed to give them an extra whatever cents a litre, which made bog-standard-average French milk about 10% more expensive than bog-standard-average German milk ... so the dairies cut back on the volume sourced in France to keep the price of their bog-standard-average cheeses and yoghurts competitive.

At the time, there was one farmer on the radio complaining that his creamery was paying him something like 10% less than his brother was getting. I was dying for the reporter to ask him why he didn't switch contracts if his brother was getting such a great deal ... but I know the mentality: he'd rather go hungry than be seen as disloyal!

Shauny2010

Here's a site showing a french dairy farm
(Nice weather too!!)

https://www.ferme-laitiere-france.com/en/journey/

Say my name

Nekarsulm wrote: »

https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffrance3-regions.francetvinfo.fr%2Foccitanie%2Ftarn%2Falbi%2Fagriculteurs-tarnais-abattent-arbres-contre-suppression-zones-defavorisees-1401903.html&h=ATPNhqnoEYiG9PEZdv9d_4_j3nMx4PxAqmM5FAuqThDhdaMqEtb2p6SptQ97hPZSuYU2aUvQw_h6x_IWJoeiDi39dOjeexfJykAwPecVvzXpfVh7JTsDClkcuzu3JR6i5LBEi_wJ&enc=AZOVtyWKe_VSMOStIGe73ttqZ0G9Zvzui-FK-63F9zeQW0FoZ6kXSf1raCqvodxq63kDrTZXe9wPkB9MBvao1vbet6CBogLkmZtI0izfZ0UgwEVronmXN5IXbMq-B1TJmzxuG7Bgc9yq8ircm93glWBp0N49oZYmfG-6l8tT0wp7Mw&s=1

When the French minister for agri. suggested redrawing the disadvantaged area boundaries, farmers took direct action and felled 5 trees across the local D92 route to get their message across!

They called actions like that in this country. The civil war!