is entering dairying still an option

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703036#Comment_119703036

Teagasc bashing is a cop out..... an excuse for farmers not having to take responsibility for themselves.

Advisers will advise to maximimise profit in every case, every farmer claiming ignorance of the fact that every cow is going to have a calf every year really makes a joke of dairy farmers.

Teagasc have files of research on how to rear calves, why would they start at that again. they don't need to worry about calf rearing.

Next thing we'll hear is farmers complaining that teagasc didn't warn them about all the slurry cows produce..... Like slurry, calve are just another byproduct of dairy cows but farmers just pay too much for them to make a profit

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703123#Comment_119703123

There is alot of great people in teagasc but there seems to be no room for any individual thought. Follow the handbook and that's it. Maybe that's why alot of lads I know are now using private advisors.

Green&Red

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703372#Comment_119703372

But you can't run a government agency like that, you need to follow policy, it would be a shambles if every advisor was going off in a different direction to each other

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703372#Comment_119703372

Private advisers have to do it right and advise well or they won't have a business.

This ''job for life'' civil service is not working and all departments have people that just don't want to work.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703123#Comment_119703123

 but Teagasc are civil servants implementing Govt expansion policy

I could say the same about the private consultants I know, They will maximise the profit on the farms they advise and that can involve expansion.

The key word is advise, any farmer that blindly follows consultants/teagasc advice shouldn't be farming, every farm/farmer is different

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703367#Comment_119703367

Yes as you mentioned teagasc will advise to maximise profit but at what cost, we are now 11 years post quota and we are burden with totally unrealistic and unprecedented nitrate regulations due to teagasc advice to maximise profit, contract rear replacement, they said, build up the herd and worry about the sheds later, they said, build up your solids through jersey crossing, they said. And as you are well aware when you get a farmer changing from suckler to diary his going to lean heavily on teagasc advice

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703372#Comment_119703372

You haven't worked with many?

Green&Red

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703474#Comment_119703474

The farmer always has the option to milk less cows you know but there is no farmer who wants to hear that. Teagasc constantly push that a SR of over 3 has marginal cows that should be culled rather than carrying them but farmers dont want to hear that.

You've lumped Teagasc maximising profits and nitrates regulations in together there when they are two separate issues.

The notion that Teagasc said to worry about sheds, storage etc later is thrown out but IMO that is individual advisers not following the teagasc script rather than Teagasc policy, the kind of individual thought others are calling for

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703501#Comment_119703501

Many what?

alps

https://twitter.com/seanboycowboy/status/1577596271329779713?t=QvkrEJbw0k5K0-2s_pzhaQ&s=19

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703643#Comment_119703643

🤮🤮🤮

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703643#Comment_119703643

What is that about?

Siamsa Sessions

Lads won’t be happy til they pass the New Zealand standards of calf welfare

mr.stonewall

Just to clear up. The teagasc playbook is in for change is what I stated. The industry is at a point where it is coming to the red cow roundabout. Lots of different directions and heavy traffic coming from different sides. This ain't bashing it's taking it and analysing its strengths and potential weaknesses. Labour, milking platform and environment regulations are going to be the challenges going forward.

We are lucky to be able to make the best use of grass and teagasc have put a mountain of work into maximizing it's use to all farmers advantage.

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703671#Comment_119703671

You wouldn’t want a herd of low maintaince cows sending 4750€ in milk each ?

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119706177#Comment_119706177

Not my cup of tea, we will just leave it at that.

K.G.

The greenfield farm in kilkenny was one of the best things that teagasc ever got involved in.the reality of dairy start ups was there.the difficulty of converting tillage land to grazing and the performance lag,the vast amount of capital involved far in excess what people project,the labour issue,the time lag in performance and the occasional herd health dramas and finally there isn't half as much money in the game as people think.alot of the problem with teagasc research is people only see what they want to see

Jjameson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119706876#Comment_119706876

It was about as useful as a fag lighter on a motorcycle to a typical drystock or mixed enterprise family farms making the change whom are the vast majority of the new entrants.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119706941#Comment_119706941

Well, a cigarette lighter is actually quite useful on a motorcycle 😉😉😉

It’s well worth remembering that milking cows is hard work. Agriland say 90 cows gives you a 90k profit before tax, however, calving 90 cows is tough not to mind milking, feeding, minding the calves till sale, silage, managing breeding and fencing. Factor in no sick pay, drop in prices etc. Any time agri prices rise production rises and then there is a correction.

There are nearly 80 people making the same kind of money in teagasc. There are people making more than that working in office jobs for the state / private sector and there are people making multiples of that at big tech companies.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707084#Comment_119707084

Most dairy farmers would make more than 90k if they let out their farm, got back their BPS, and got a job. Dairy farming is like working 2 full time jobs.

Grueller

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707240#Comment_119707240

For about 6 weeks in the spring. But for 6 weeks dry period it's a 2 hour a day gig. All summer with stock out grazing you can be as free as you like if you are willing to pay for an odd evening milking.

It's no bed of roses but no way is it 80 hours plus a week all the time.

whelan2

As I've said before it's as easy or as hard as you make it...

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707274#Comment_119707274

Pretty relentless here anyway. For those 2 hour days in the winter there is usually a building or maintenance project here. Cutting trees or something else. I like to be kept busy. When you have a job, you turn up in the morning and do your time. You don't stop the clock when you are quiet for an hour or two.

Very flexible though in fairness. I spend alot of time with the children and parents during the day and it suits me fine. I'm just making the point that any money out of dairy farming is hard earned and well deserved.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119706941#Comment_119706941

Ya it was a project that was designed to let the larger farmer with finance know the way you could set up multiple stand alone projects. They forgot about the labour issue, housing, slurry, calves, and environmental changes it is coming back to bite these farmers.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707084#Comment_119707084

90 k is great wages for a semi skilled worker. You have to work near enough the same hours to get the same wages. Most of the workmanship on a farm is 10-15 euro/ hours work. Tractor work, milking, calving, land maintenance etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707240#Comment_119707240

They are very few that have skills that really pay. Most would end up working in manual or semi skilled work in the 11-17 euro an hour work.

I used to always say to lads complaining about there jobs over the years. Far away hills look green. One lads said it back to me after he took a deal in his early forties and ended up driving a taxi.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707274#Comment_119707274

Ya it's easy to know you have and are working outside farming.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707506#Comment_119707506

A lot of lads make work for themselves by not contracting out certain jobs. Yes it costs more but if you want a certain lifestyle you have to pay for it

Its like retiring you will never have the money you had when working.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707731#Comment_119707731

Re contracting out jobs, it's getting impossible to get a fencing contractor as one example, these lads have 6 months work ahead of them and even in my case I needed the entire place fenced, and after going to 3 different lads all who promised to be on within the month none showed up our bothered answering the phone, ended up doing the whole myself and bought a stake driver, but the magic Bullet of getting the contractor in locally anyway isn't a straightforward option anymore

Mooooo

No point looking at this year in isolation for costs or profit, look at the last 5 or 10. There have been more years closer to 25 than current prices

Re the work itself a lot is dependent on what stage people are at and what they need out of it. All points by everyone above are valid but can be circumstance specific.

Just re the labour point. We are at full employment, and while the energy shitshow is putting a lot of places under pressure, wages aren't likely to come down. Local petrol station with shop was offering 14 an hour to find people, no such thing as lads working for minimum wage anymore so if you want people you'll have to pay for em, and in some cases that means not standing still

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707274#Comment_119707274

Some people are in liquid milk.

there are plenty of lads doing their own work over the Summer too. Not everyone is getting contractors in for everything

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707506#Comment_119707506

It’s probably all dependent on your position in your setup. If a lad is still in development phases there’s a lot more work than an established man. And that goes for all categories of farmers, not just dairy. But then there’s also lads that are able to drag the work out to create the image of being busy.

We’ve one neighbour here that would be well established and would tell anyone that’ll listen how hard farming is and how he’s wore out from it with 12 - 14 hour days every day. He has about 20 suckler cows, 40 or 50 dry stock and buys in about 200 lambs to fatten on kale over the winter. He’d tell his part time farming neighbours that they don’t know how handy they have it in their off farm jobs compared to him out in all weathers every day of the week.

I don’t think he realises the part timers he’s talking to have more stock than him and are able to have all their farming done in an hour or 2 in the evenings after their off farm work.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707972#Comment_119707972

To be fair, there are usually a lot of efficiencies that can be done with a better set up. But some lads might not have the money, or want to take on the risk - which is reasonable, on making those investments and just make do with what they have.

Some of the lads with off-farm work might even be making a paper loss on their farm to offset high rate of tax in their 9-5.