I’m not a farmer but curious how farmers make money

fairyribbon

I know you can get grants to preserve the land such as environmental conservation grants and there is a single farm payment (while I presume is what farmers live off day to day?) but at the end of the month can you get an income from the farm? Or do you have to wait until the end of the tax year to see if there is a profit or loss. If there is a profit, surely you invest that back into the land? Just wondering how farmers live day to Day/ month to month , year to year.

blackdog1

https://youtu.be/_pDTiFkXgEE

Enjoy

hopeso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058297129/i-m-not-a-farmer-but-curious-how-farmers-make-money

You have it pretty much summed up in your post. For the majority of farmers, there isn't a day to day living to be made from the farm. A large percentage of farmers have an off farm job to support themselves and their family. The off farm income often supports the farm at times too.

Glenomra

EU farm payments. The recipients plus the amounts they receive are online.

Glenomra

search 'CAP Beneficiaries Publication' for relevant counties. For instance in Limerick 5,244 beneficiaries varying from a low of 38 euro to a high of 141,160 euro [excluding public owned land]. One should be able to live on 141, 160 euro

White Clover

Usually, these threads are started on a Bank Holiday weekend but it seems any weekend will do now.

hopeso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120616863#Comment_120616863

One would, but unfortunately there's probably only one getting that amount.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120616907#Comment_120616907

And he certainly won't be getting it any more 🤣

K.G.

I hope I don't offend anyone sensibilities but it's divided in 2 categories. Larger commercial operations involved mainly in either dairy pigs or tillage and a few beef operations where the production yields the financial reward and tends to be cyclical good/bad financial years.then you have mainly beef which an often be part time and smaller scale where often playing the system can lead to higher returns than pushing production. Starting off each year in farming you never know how much you are going to make

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058297129/i-m-not-a-farmer-but-curious-how-farmers-make-money

Dairy tends to have much higher incomes. Dairy farmers get paid per month for milk produced, although milk is not produced every month by a typical dairy farmer.

red bull

I have been a dairy farmer most of my life but retired 2021 ,

In 2022 milk prices went through the roof but so did the price of feed and fertiliser

In2022 I had a suckler herd inputs went through the roof but I had to buy much less, so in both years I made a little income.

On top of the little income earned from the farm I qualified for the basic payment scheme which brought my income up to about €20k

Try it sometime work long days and sometimes long nights

but remember you provide well paid jobs for many in creameries and meat plants. Be Happy

Downtown123

In farming there is a massive accumulation effect. Farmers that inherit ready to go turn key operations which require no investment are much better off than those who have to spend to upgrade set ups. Investments kill the returns from farming- especially dairy farming. If investments don’t have to be made then the margins are grand- especially in Dairy, but it’s the unexpected expenses.

anthony500_1

In my opinion Outside of large dairy and tillage farms most smaller farms say 100ac or less would be dependent on payments from the EU, either through basic income support, or entering into schemes to avail of max payments for your land type. In my own situation I've a small scale suckler herd, west of Ireland land, between selling stock and buying everything for the year from feed to fertilizer to vets bills , I'd be at close to zero profit before subsidies maybe even a loss some years esp 2022 with the price of everything, some might say I'm a terrible farmer and I'll accept that too, but it's only when I take into account the EU money that I'm actually making a profit yearly. The EU need us as farmers to produce food cheaply so everyone in the EU can afford to eat cheap food.