Beef Plan Movement (READ OP BEFORE POSTING)

Bass Reeves

wrangler wrote: »

bogman_bass wrote: »

7 months is too long? At .15LU per Ha?
If that’s the case you’d be better off planting trees on that land and being done with it.

Are you serius, that's only the equivalent to a minimum of one ewe to the hectare or one 2 year old bullock to seven hectares.
Doesn't sound too onerous

It all depends on your land. I came from a farm 75 acre owned and 75 acres of commage rights. Commage was either rock or north facing mountain . The amount of stock kept on it was 8-10 sucklers cows, 2 milking cows, a horse, and 80 -100 mountain ewes. There was a certain amount of hay and turnips bough is as the father worked in the Co Council. About 25 LU on 150 acres or 60 HA or a stocking rate of 0.4 LU/ HA. Weanling sold in the autumn would only be 150 kgs at best. It needed mixed grazing to help the greenish bits green. Lambs reared to ewes about 0.6-0.8 even now they struggle to hit 0.8/ ewe. It was land that did not react to fertlizer. We were 20 years ahead of a lot around us as the father worked.
So ya 0.15/ HA could a struggle on North facing rocky mountain land. You might not be able to maintain that. On that sort of land you need to have 2 year old wether's. The lads from the Commeragh mountains used to buy them to carry them up there as it was the only animal that could live up there.
If it was all planted there would be no tourism in Kerry or football teams ot of it.

Albert Johnson

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It all depends on your land. I came from a farm 75 acre owned and 75 acres of commage rights. Commage was either rock or north facing mountain . The amount of stock kept on it was 8-10 sucklers cows, 2 milking cows, a horse, and 80 -100 mountain ewes. There was a certain amount of hay and turnips bough is as the father worked in the Co Council. About 25 LU on 150 acres or 60 HA or a stocking rate of 0.4 LU/ HA. Weanling sold in the autumn would only be 150 kgs at best. It needed mixed grazing to help the greenish bits green. Lambs reared to ewes about 0.6-0.8 even now they struggle to hit 0.8/ ewe. It was land that did not react to fertlizer. We were 20 years ahead of a lot around us as the father worked.
So ya 0.15/ HA could a struggle on North facing rocky mountain land. You might not be able to maintain that. On that sort of land you need to have 2 year old wether's. The lads from the Commeragh mountains used to buy them to carry them up there as it was the only animal that could live up there.
If it was all planted there would be no tourism in Kerry or football teams ot of it.

The auld lad tells a story of bringing milk to the creamery one morning in the late 70's just as a lorry load of fertilizer had arrived from Cork. There being no forklift locally meant a team of men had been assembled to manually unload the cargo. The creamery was less than half a mile from our house and the father was in no great hurry home as usual.

He got chatting to the driver who was a good Cork man and was informed that it was his first time this far west. The driver was astounded at the variable quality of land he'd encountered and probably wondered to himself why anyone would bother buying fertilizer for the same. It was a particularly cold hard April day and the hills surrounding the creamery yard looked especially bleak and dark.

Our man happened to be facing in the direction of our place and spotted probably the bleakest of the bleak hills which belonged to a neighbor who happened to be part of the group unloading the lorry. The hill in question was almost vertical, never grew anything until mid June and still only managed a crop of heather and sprat rushes. Remaining totally straight faced the driver enquired of no one in particular as to "what mountains are those?". The owner of said ranch (who was cantankerous at best) proceeded to call him everything under the sun much to his confusion having asked an honest question.

Bass Reeves

The one I heard was of a young lad who was after going to Limerick with a match maker. He arrived home and was telling his father about the farm he visited as his blind grandfather listened from the corner by the open fire. There was nothing but thistle's on the place he exclaimed. '' How big were they'' came from the corner. ''So big I tied the horse to one of them'' said the young bucko. ''Is she very old'' from the corner. ''About ten years older than me'' said the young lad getting flustered.
''Marry her if the thistle's are that big it is good land'' said the grandfather, '' she might not be in great fettle but the land is they were always lazy up there''

patsy_mccabe

An old neighbour of mine who was gone very bald, always said that moss won't grow on a good field. :rolleyes:

Reggie.

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

An old neighbour of mine who was gone very bald, always said that moss won't grow on a good field. :rolleyes:

Or a busy road

kk.man

Bass Reeves wrote: »

The one I heard was of a young lad who was after going to Limerick with a match maker. He arrived home and was telling his father about the farm he visited as his blind grandfather listened from the corner by the open fire. There was nothing but thistle's on the place he exclaimed. '' How big were they'' came from the corner. ''So big I tied the horse to one of them'' said the young bucko. ''Is she very old'' from the corner. ''About ten years older than me'' said the young lad getting flustered.
''Marry her if the thistle's are that big it is good land'' said the grandfather, '' she might not be in great fettle but the land is they were always lazy up there''

Reminds me of a memory;
When I was a young lad I was passing comment on the thistles at the side of a ditch in one of our fields. The boss man said that's the sign of good ground and see the blacktorn right beside it.

MIKEKC

bogman_bass wrote: »

7 months is too long? At .15LU per Ha?
If that’s the case you’d be better off planting trees on that land and being

7 months would extend into 8. You can't buy or sell all stock in one day . It will take a few weeks at start and finish, so probably 8 months

Albert Johnson

MIKEKC wrote: »

7 months would extend into 8. You can't buy or sell all stock in one day . It will take a few weeks at start and finish, so probably 8 months

I agree that it's not always going to be possible to assemble all the stock on the one day especially if handling large numbers. Having said that a lot of the summer grazers around here have small farms and therefore don't keep much stock. I'd imagine a fair percentage would have less than 10 cattle, most purchase either off dealer's or at least get an "agent" to buy for them and save taking a day off work to attend the mart. In such cases the stock are often assembled within a day or 2 and are almost certainly all sold in one batch in the back end.

patsy_mccabe

Is this buying for Larry, I wonder;

https://www.donedeal.ie/all?userId=114065

wrangler

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I agree that it's not always going to be possible to assemble all the stock on the one day especially if handling large numbers. Having said that a lot of the summer grazers around here have small farms and therefore don't keep much stock. I'd imagine a fair percentage would have less than 10 cattle, most purchase either off dealer's or at least get an "agent" to buy for them and save taking a day off work to attend the mart. In such cases the stock are often assembled within a day or 2 and are almost certainly all sold in one batch in the back end.

Also it's only the equivalent of I store bullock to 9 acres, some seem to be confusing it with the dole where you get paid for doing nothing

Albert Johnson

wrangler wrote: »

Also it's only the equivalent of I store bullock to 9 acres, some seem to be confusing it with the dole where you get paid for doing nothing

Wrangler I respect your input both past and present into all thing's farming, you've been at the coal face for a lot longer than myself and done well for yourself in the process and rightly so. However you can be somewhat condescending at times, it's hard to understand what marginal ground is without having first hand experience of it. I too sometimes like to create a reaction from people with a loaded comment such as the above so I can usually see the same trait in others.

I was of the opinion that the clue was in the name regarding the ANC payments (Area of natural constraint) if the eligible land was capable of matching the stocking rates of better regions then we wouldn't need such a subsidy. If anyone with a good ranch of land East of the Shannon wants to swap for my few fragmented rushy acres and a humble ANC yearly sub there more than welcome to enquire. Perhaps one wintering season from the end of October till mid May would open there eyes as to how the other side lives!

wrangler

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Wrangler I respect your input both past and present into all thing's farming, you've been at the coal face for a lot longer than myself and done well for yourself in the process and rightly so. However you can be somewhat condescending at times, it's hard to understand what marginal ground is without having first hand experience of it. I too sometimes like to create a reaction from people with a loaded comment such as the above so I can usually see the same trait in others.

I was of the opinion that the clue was in the name regarding the ANC payments (Area of natural constraint) if the eligible land was capable of matching the stocking rates of better regions then we wouldn't need such a subsidy. If anyone with a good ranch of land East of the Shannon wants to swap for my few fragmented rushy acres and a humble ANC yearly sub there more than welcome to enquire. Perhaps one wintering season from the end of October till mid May would open there eyes as to how the other side lives!

Not a great image to be paying farmers for doing nothing, back to the good old ''setaside'' days I suppose.
Fulltime drystock farmers east of the shannon are probably the worst off now

_Brian

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Wrangler I respect your input both past and present into all thing's farming, you've been at the coal face for a lot longer than myself and done well for yourself in the process and rightly so. However you can be somewhat condescending at times, it's hard to understand what marginal ground is without having first hand experience of it. I too sometimes like to create a reaction from people with a loaded comment such as the above so I can usually see the same trait in others.

I was of the opinion that the clue was in the name regarding the ANC payments (Area of natural constraint) if the eligible land was capable of matching the stocking rates of better regions then we wouldn't need such a subsidy. If anyone with a good ranch of land East of the Shannon wants to swap for my few fragmented rushy acres and a humble ANC yearly sub there more than welcome to enquire. Perhaps one wintering season from the end of October till mid May would open there eyes as to how the other side lives!

Plenty of shallow soiled constrained farms east of the Shannon too.

Albert Johnson

wrangler wrote: »

Not a great image to be paying farmers for doing nothing, back to the good old ''setaside'' days I suppose.
Fulltime drystock farmers east of the shannon are probably the worst off now

I agree it's not much to aspire to but I don't see much of an alternative either? Producing more for less and less hasn't served us very well in my lifetime. The biggest problem I see when debating the future of our industry as a whole is it turns into a poor mouthing session as to who is worst off. I think the processor's have long since learned to keep us fighting among ourselves and we'll never challenge the real elephant in the room.

I'm probably overly pessimistic but I believe agriculture is largely being phased out in the country. We've lost a large amount of the wider public support, we're just seen as a bunch of subsided polluter's who they could work without. They'd much rather import it from some place else and convince themselves it's carbon, cruelty, air mile or whatever new buzzword free. There'd be a nice big nature reserve outside the cities and no land grabbing farmers to spoil there right to roam. I only have a Mickey mouse farming setup and I'm convinced when I stop so will it. Most of surrounding areas are the same, be all conifers within a generation, a lot of it is already.

Albert Johnson

_Brian wrote: »

Plenty of shallow soiled constrained farms east of the Shannon too.

I have no doubt there is Brian although I was of the opinion that a lot of them also qualified for the ANC? Marginal land is the same regardless of the address, not a killing to be made on it whatever the county.

Bass Reeves

90% of the country gets ANC payments. That the big issue. Now I am lucky enough to get it but I do not begrudge it to other's. I much prefer to see a farmers drawing payments and stocking at minimum rates rather than lads producing cattle at a loss,and calving down suckler cows with a product that there is no economic market for. Lads pumping hundreds of Euro's of ration into cattle producing beef that there is no margin in. The lad that is minimum stocking is doing no damage to anyone

There are other issues that are much more realistic to tackle. Should greening be flat rated. Is it right that a dairy farmer that gets a derogation gets the same % greening on a larger payment as a farmer on poorer quality land that has much more biodiversity. Should any dairy farmer that has a derogation get an ANC payment anyway. The same with any intensive faming operation.If you can intensively farm land is it ANC or greening compliant. We have these artificial​ schemes to that fail the biodiversity system and then encourage farmers to reclam marginal land that dose more for bio diversity's that these sh!tty schemes which are not only of benefit to farmers with large land bases.

Base price

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Is this buying for Larry, I wonder;

https://www.donedeal.ie/all?userId=114065

They are large feeders/finishers that send to several different factories depending on the type of animal, price etc.

wrangler

Bass Reeves wrote: »

90% of the country gets ANC payments. That the big issue. Now I am lucky enough to get it but I do not begrudge it to other's. I much prefer to see a farmers drawing payments and stocking at minimum rates rather than lads producing cattle at a loss,and calving down suckler cows with a product that there is no economic market for. Lads pumping hundreds of Euro's of ration into cattle producing beef that there is no margin in. The lad that is minimum stocking is doing no damage to anyone

There are other issues that are much more realistic to tackle. Should greening be flat rated. Is it right that a dairy farmer that gets a derogation gets the same % greening on a larger payment as a farmer on poorer quality land that has much more biodiversity. Should any dairy farmer that has a derogation get an ANC payment anyway. The same with any intensive faming operation.If you can intensively farm land is it ANC or greening compliant. We have these artificial​ schemes to that fail the biodiversity system and then encourage farmers to reclam marginal land that dose more for bio diversity's that these sh!tty schemes which are not only of benefit to farmers with large land bases.

Is it right that a dairy farmer gets the same as a drystock farmer!!!!!!

dh1985

Bass Reeves wrote: »

90% of the country gets ANC payments. That the big issue. Now I am lucky enough to get it but I do not begrudge it to other's. I much prefer to see a farmers drawing payments and stocking at minimum rates rather than lads producing cattle at a loss,and calving down suckler cows with a product that there is no economic market for. Lads pumping hundreds of Euro's of ration into cattle producing beef that there is no margin in. The lad that is minimum stocking is doing no damage to anyone

There are other issues that are much more realistic to tackle. Should greening be flat rated. Is it right that a dairy farmer that gets a derogation gets the same % greening on a larger payment as a farmer on poorer quality land that has much more biodiversity. Should any dairy farmer that has a derogation get an ANC payment anyway. The same with any intensive faming operation.If you can intensively farm land is it ANC or greening compliant. We have these artificial​ schemes to that fail the biodiversity system and then encourage farmers to reclam marginal land that dose more for bio diversity's that these sh!tty schemes which are not only of benefit to farmers with large land bases.

Is it possible for you to post without taking snipes at suckler farmers. Why do you think you are deserving of a living from farming your system than the suckler man. The beef sector would be better served looking for a for a better return for there product no matter what it is than pointing fingers at other systems.

Bass Reeves

dh1985 wrote: »

Is it possible for you to post without taking snipes at suckler farmers. Why do you think you are deserving of a living from farming your system than the suckler man. The beef sector would be better served looking for a for a better return for there product no matter what it is than pointing fingers at other systems.

I taught I had a pop at 3-4 different groups there. However if we look at market realities suckler cattle are only viable at prices well above 4/ kg and then only of carcasses can be taken to above 450DW as well as good efficiency. At least 50% of suckler farmers are uneconomic no matter what they do. For some there seems to be an entitlement to produce no matter what the market realty. It like lads trying to grow tillage crops west of the shannon. There is no point shooting the messenger

Bass Reeves

wrangler wrote: »

Is it right that a dairy farmer gets the same as a drystock farmer!!!!!!

That's a good question. In a free market economy where you subsidize farming should you set subsidity's at different levels compared to different activities. 3-5 years ago I would have said no but now I would look at it slighty different.

However I have always believed that artificial subsidity's discourage economic farming. But we can within the system change the way subsidity's are delivered and yet target economic and biodiversity realities. Greening should not be percentages based.but rather flat rated across farming and removed from derogation farms. I am not sure what way ANC funding is set It is funded by government and the EU but are rates set by the EU. If the funds are delivered to us regardless of delivery should we retarget them away from dairy farmers just as it is not easy for tillage only farmers to access them.

By using funding like this we still do not discriminate against commercial realities but still change finding towards biodiversity, lower income systems and poorer land. However we discourage forestry.

wrangler

Bass Reeves wrote: »

That's a good question. In a free market economy where you subsidize farming should you set subsidity's at different levels compared to different activities. 3-5 years ago I would have said no but now I would look at it slighty different.

However I have always believed that artificial subsidity's discourage economic farming. But we can within the system change the way subsidity's are delivered and yet target economic and biodiversity realities. Greening should not be percentages based.but rather flat rated across farming and removed from derogation farms. I am not sure what way ANC funding is set It is funded by government and the EU but are rates set by the EU. If the funds are delivered to us regardless of delivery should we retarget them away from dairy farmers just as it is not easy for tillage only farmers to access them.

By using funding like this we still do not discriminate against commercial realities but still change finding towards biodiversity, lower income systems and poorer land. However we discourage forestry.

BPM's support of 100% convergence of BPS is totally against suckler farmers and beef farmers,especially full time farmers, good suckler farmers would have above average entitlements.
Taking income off these farmers and giving it to dairy farmers and parttime farmers couldn't be seen as pro suckler farmers

Grueller

wrangler wrote: »

BPM's support of 100% convergence of BPS is totally against suckler farmers and beef farmers,especially full time farmers, good suckler farmers would have above average entitlements.
Taking income off these farmers and giving it to dairy farmers and parttime farmers couldn't be seen as pro suckler farmers

Define a good suckler farmer please

patsy_mccabe

Grueller wrote: »

Define a good suckler farmer please

Doesn't drink, smoke, gamble or beat the wife. :cool:

Grueller

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Doesn't drink, smoke, gamble or beat the wife. :cool:

Only one he can afford to do from that list is beat the wife.

wrangler

Grueller wrote: »

Define a good suckler farmer please

A farmer that's on top of his/her game I suppose, they seem to be a target for begrudgery now if their entitlements are over €400/ha

tractorporn

wrangler wrote: »

A farmer that's on top of his/her game I suppose, they seem to be a target for begrudgery now if their entitlements are over €400/ha

What does the value of some ones entitlements have to do with them being a good farmer? Most lads are farming entitlements that their fathers built up at this stage.

Grueller

wrangler wrote: »

A farmer that's on top of his/her game I suppose, they seem to be a target for begrudgery now if their entitlements are over €400/ha

High value entitlements don't equal a good farmer today. It means that at one point in time that farmer was very active. That is not necessarily the case since then.

jaymla627

wrangler wrote: »

BPM's support of 100% convergence of BPS is totally against suckler farmers and beef farmers,especially full time farmers, good suckler farmers would have above average entitlements.
Taking income off these farmers and giving it to dairy farmers and parttime farmers couldn't be seen as pro suckler farmers

Shouldn't you paraphrase it as it's against a specific section that have been up on the golden goose for the past 15 odd years coining it and are starting to sweat now with the beef game screwed and the cheque in the post reducing they are faced with either renting the place out our having to go milking
cows....
You have a great air of superiority how the older generation Should be looked after and f**k anyone coming after ye...

wrangler

Grueller wrote: »

High value entitlements don't equal a good farmer today. It means that at one point in time that farmer was very active. That is not necessarily the case since then.

And it doesn't mean that young farmers are going to be good either, I saw a ''young farmer'' spreading slurry on six inches of grass earlier just because the field was always a silage field and he couldn't be bothered putting a fence round it to graze it.
Me renting out my entitlements is no more hideous than that guy getting his YF top up