Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117910797#Comment_117910797

Your entitled to your opinion but maybe you don't realise that we're not talking about high input herds just being affected here. Many well managed high EBI herds will be exceeding 6300 litres on 1 ton of concentrate which is fairly standard feeding for 305 days milking. My cows will be going from 85 kg to 106 kg in the space of a couple of 2 years or whatever it is. My stocking rate will be cut to under a cow to the acre. Look, I'll survive but it makes the 80 hour week even more not worth it. And it doesn't makes scientific or logical sense to stock with extra inefficient cows in my opinion.

Regards sticking together as farmers, I'd say that ship has sailed. IFA seems defunct and actually absorbed into government. I've heard nothing from ICMSA on the whole thing although they are taking money off my milk cheque every month. I see beef plan on the other hand are making a strong argument for the suckler lads. All these proposals have to be agreed to here before they go to Europe so let's see who speaks up and who doesn't.

Mooooo

The bands are the way they are, as said already the same or even more lenient than in Europe. All that is likely happen is another band for 7.5k up more than likely. The NAP is a water issue so arguing re ghg is pointless. We are the only country in Europe with the derogation. All our arguing here will mean fcukall if dero is lost, and will be looking at a reduction of close to a lu/ ha over even these new figures.

Timmaay

Trying to move away from the negativity of derogation and the amount of sh1te that comes outa a cow ha, I'm absolutely swamped with grass here, never seen anything like it for the end of September. Strip grazing the heifers on like covers of over 2500, and cows going into 2000s. Mowing one paddock that I skipped last round, if it was any earlier in the year I'd be taking out a hell of alot more, but given how good ground conditions have been and no major rain forecast I'll take the chance and push on with a big wedge for next few weeks.

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117907919#Comment_117907919

Buying time…nitrates isn’t a quick fix. It’ll take decades. What takes years to destroy, takes decades to renew. Things have been positive here for over 20yrs but you get to a point where results become less and less obvious. There’s talks of N being leached from bedrock(?).

What the Dept. are proposing, imho, is a sop to renew the dero. Dero will possibly get renewed and the can is kicked down the road…until the next shocking EPA report.

Nothing will change. The EPA reports will continue to deteriorate, farmers will continue to pollute…and Jack will end up saying ‘FFS LADS!!’.

Easy for Jack to wash his hands of the whole affair because it’s the Dept of Housings responsibility. Besides doling out grants and begging for deros, what do the Dept of AG do?

It would be better for farmers to take a generational view of the environment..think of all ye’re small little farmers, wtf will they do when they’re suffering restrictions like we have here?

Injuryprone

Mahony_j, you're not making any sense.

You've no problem with the introduction of bands? So what bands do you want to be brought in? Put numbers on it?

It's been pointed out already that the bands they are proposing are consistent with what exists already throughout Europe. So it's impossible to think how a 6500 cow would get a lesser value. The only change that could possibly occur is that they could introduce more bands, which would be worse for farmers imo.

straight

That's my point. People think this is just about nitrates but this isn't going to fix anything. We had biden telling us the last few days that we have to reduce methane gas urgently. I'll be doing my figures based on farming at 170kg in future.

Mooooo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117911760#Comment_117911760

Same here Timmay. DM way down tho, grazing 22 to 2400 covers and clean out good unless heavy rain and thats with feeding 4kg as well. Was a away for 2 days and said I'd give em lower covers to make it easier on lad covering, tbh it was wrong call. No it rained but what I thought were 1600 prob closer to 1300 realistically. Growth over 70 last 3 weeks, had only a week or two in the summer with it.

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117911942#Comment_117911942

Don’t have a problem with bands ,do I think there should be more than 3 …yes …is it fair that a 6500 kg herd is classed same as a 10 k herd …no 106 at 6500 is too high and at 10 k it’s too low …another band somewhere around 7500/8 k …a lot of herds on fragmented land blocks but carrying higher sr on the milk block are going to be in bother .most are complient as is ,there not just dumping slurry ,proably ok for storage now but there going to have to destock ,loose income and spend more money again to stay complient …...lots of herds producing a lot of milk up to that point from grass …the various submissions have outlined solutions to higher yielding cows and n excretion wether we or the powers that be in the dept or Tegasc or wherever want to accept and scrutinise them is a different matter ….the timescale for this has been very tight and not a lot of time to study it in-depth …one side had all the input from what we’re led to believe…i

outside of all these bands little noise is been made about the income hit this will have on affected farms …land prices are high and look to remain high …paying high prices for land to rent or buy dosnt stack up for most if your just taking it for essentially maps and unable to stock it with any more cows

straight

Flying it here too. Grazing 2300 but grazing more like 1400. Cows are very content. Doing about 1.62 kg solids on 2kg nuts. Have bales to take out during the week too. Was going to take more but it's getting late. Ground conditions excellent but I've enough rain now. Looks like a goodish week forecast.

atlantic mist

What is the advantage of keeping derogation?? (never in it)

Mooooo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912566#Comment_117912566

Allows to stock at 250kg/ ha organic N as opposed to 170kg

Injuryprone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912053#Comment_117912053

On what basis do you think that 106 is too high for a 6500 cow?

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117909775#Comment_117909775

Export slurry, import some p back in through silage/maize/wholecrop, change sward composition to utilise p more efficiently and keep similar numbers?

blackdog1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912907#Comment_117912907

I've no problem with the banding per say , it will pull me into derogation, fair enough. What I do have a problem is if and when derogation goes any high yielding herds are gone. Teagasc are naive , they are of the opinion derogation is here forever, it's not going to happen, as Dawg said even after 20 years of water improvement France are looking at new ways to reduce nitrogen excretion, because the improvements slows over time. Now in the best case scenario that happens to us and we still have derogation in place.....they will pull it to improve nitrates further. Also farmers have a problem with one band of cows decreasing especially when they eat an exclusive high protein grass diet and their real figure is probably 100+n . As a winter herd who buffer feeds on the shoulders and indoor for 3months it wouldn't surprise me if my n excretion was lower. I think this whole proposal by Teagasc is not equitable and Short sighted. Either everyone takes a hit albeit a different hit or we roll the dice and get rid of derogation and keeps bands singular at 85kg of N

Mooooo

The banding is from Europe, its linked to output, I dunno what can be done not to have it. Points have to be able to be proven, saying we disagree because we don't like it isn’t going to cut it.

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913803#Comment_117913803

Have u read the devenish /ihfa /roches feeds submissions ?????….the bands request may of come from Europe but the actual bands themselves were set based on just Tegasc data ….that’s one of my big issues ….they didn’t consult anyone else ….Pitt because from reading submissions there is a whole other line of data that could of been taken into account

GrasstoMilk

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/farmers-should-be-selling-methane-not-cutting-it/

makes great sense

no need for any extra on farm slurry storage, just draw slurry to the digester

kevthegaff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913832#Comment_117913832

There was a crowd trying to get planning around mid tipp for a digestor, looking for signatures from farmers and will pay for it. 20k radius I think

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913832#Comment_117913832

Will they pay you the rate it's worth, plus your time and costs for getting it to them? Aren't they fussy in what they take. As in they won't take any auld shite (pardon the pun)? Was it here someone mentioned they wanted the slurry for free and then sell you back the digestate?

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913679#Comment_117913679

Milk ureas tell the tale in the aspect, if farmer A had a herd average of 7000 litres with a average yearly milk urea of 22 and farmer B had a herd average of 5500 litres with a average yearly milk urea of 30, I'd wager farmer B's n per cow is probably on par with farmer A, when you see the two Irish lads that won the European young scientist of the year award for their project on not misgendering 5-7 year old kids, the eu project in my eyes is f**ked and agriculture will the sacrificial lamb, the best we can do is be in a position that we can pull the pin on dairying without the fear of losing the farm to the bank, dairying in the next 10 years will be a expensive hobby if lads try to conform to whatever regulations they keep raining down on us, you won't be able to spend your way to been environmently friendly enough in their eyes and have a commercially viable business

Mooooo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913816#Comment_117913816

They focus on carbon efficiency re the banding. Nitrates has fcukall to do with CO2, its about water quality. They would have to prove the higher yielding cow excreted less N than lower ones. Look as said above when herd matures here I'll fall into the higher band, not happy with it either. But if dero goes I'm totally out of business

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913944#Comment_117913944

I’m goosed too if dero goes and if bands come in as proposed it’s going to squeeze me v tight for next 2 years …blackdog outlined above and it’s outlined in devenish submission where higher yielding cows excrete less organic n per litre of milk and grub consumed in comparasion to a low input system on grass only diet …your right in that it’s about water quality …but then why are we been forced to cover slurry stores …tbf there is some merits to it but not on water quality

blackdog1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913944#Comment_117913944

This is my point. Dero is going to go sometime. So what cow is profitable in that situation??.We are sacrificing the cow that will be profitable at 170 N a hectare...great in the short run but if your looking at the long term we should be sacrificing derogation to save that profitable cow.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913853#Comment_117913853

Bord na mona have/had this plan, crowd in tipperary are going to pay for it and cover haulage, re slurry quality it needs to come from cows on tmr High quality diets our finishing animals, the watery stuff out of a lagoon won't cut it

Mooooo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117914033#Comment_117914033

We are the only country in Europe with a derogation and those cows in Europe are still banded the same or higher than us without dero so saving the current figure is a non runner.

The increase in sr dero allows, allows a lot of farms to be viable, not just profitable. Removing it would remove the viability of farms, particularly around West Cork, regardless of the cow thats there. If dero goes its larger farms are more likely to survive not smaller ones, assuming debt doesn't shut em, as they will have the numbers to still provide a viable income

Mooooo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117914023#Comment_117914023

Farms are stocked with cows, so per litre figure won't cut it. There aren't that many not feeding meal anyway and has to be 14 or below as well

Also I agree on the covering but they apparently believe ammonia becomes a water quality issue eventually however that is. Seems to be there will be flexibility there on that one

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913816#Comment_117913816

The bands didn't come from teagasc. The 6500 is a nasty limit, specifically aimed at high stocked grass and ration farms...It's targetted with a purpose, and if doesn't result in an improvement in water quality, will extend to providing proof that slurry has been taken off the grazing platform.

The IHFA submission is a disgrace. It builds an arguemend based on carbon emissions efficiencies..Either it strives to confuse its own membership, or the author is an absolute thicko. It then stoops to the lowest rung of the sewer in striving to discredit another dairy breed and the methodology of farming practice, which if they ever took their head out of their rear end, would realise is completely a d utterly untrue..

Signed....a black 'n white IHFA (reluctant now) member

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117914097#Comment_117914097

We are also one of a select few that haven't been given the huge grants and subsidies and feed-in tariffs that french/german/English farmers have availed of towards a.d plants, add to that our planning laws mean even if a farmer was to fund it he probably will be shot down by the local council our an taisce if he gets around the council and locals objecting.

Remember the front page of the Journal with project clover last year hasn't been a peep about it since as the money men in the co-ops must of got the calculator out and said no, you'd of imagined a year on from this that planning applications would of gone in and in some instances building started on some sites but not a screed has been done as far as I know

blackdog1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117914097#Comment_117914097

When did those bands come in? Was it before they lost their derogation in an attempt to keep it? And now they are stuck with it and paying the price? How many of us are renting land and the landowners are drawing a single farm payment and not giving people maps to put through to reduce their stocking rate and overall nitrate figure?

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117914159#Comment_117914159

All the info I’ve got says that they compiled the data which gave the bands …without consulting others outside .the water issue is bigger issue in some areas rather than others ….south east has big issue ….lots of big pasture based dairy herds and intensive tillage …there think tank …agree on that piece re the ihfa proposal …I’ll advised and counter productive …and no need for it