Dairy chit chat II

jaymla627 wrote: »

Interesting snippet I read this week was cow numbers increased on Irish farms by 8% but total milk output only went up by 1% in 2016, it's crazy what's happening at farm level with lads chasing numbers at all costs and then after all this their losing hundreds of litres per cow per lactation while loading on debt to finance the infrastructure and carry through extra replacements our buy cows to achieve all this.....
The grass mantra that teagasc has built it's castle on is all well and good but what it had factored into this was feed prices for grains for all those "inefficient " high cost producers like the Americans and co would stay high our at least their would be years like 2012/2013 when grains would be expensive thus curtailing production and meaning no massive build up of dairy stocks on world markets but it hasn't panned out this way....
Given the route the vast majority of Irish dairy are on which is a low cost grass based system based around a 5 to 5500 litre cow they can't take advantage our simply won't as their conditioned this way to drive some extra milk per cow out of purchased feed which definitely pays at the minute with maize meal sub 200 euro delivered into the yard and milk the right side of 30 cent, have done all the sums here and I can't for the life of me with feed prices so low how the mentality of lads is I better jump from 100 to 150 cows throwing out for arguements sake 750000 litres instead of staying at 100 feeding more meal/breeding a high production 7500 litre plus cow and throwing out the same milk as 150 on a grass based low input system

At farm walk today, teagasc fella said that we're half way to reaching harvest 2020 targets for milk production

jaymla627 wrote: »

Interesting snippet I read this week was cow numbers increased on Irish farms by 8% but total milk output only went up by 1% in 2016, it's crazy what's happening at farm level with lads chasing numbers at all costs and then after all this their losing hundreds of litres per cow per lactation while loading on debt to finance the infrastructure and carry through extra replacements our buy cows to achieve all this.....
The grass mantra that teagasc has built it's castle on is all well and good but what it had factored into this was feed prices for grains for all those "inefficient " high cost producers like the Americans and co would stay high our at least their would be years like 2012/2013 when grains would be expensive thus curtailing production and meaning no massive build up of dairy stocks on world markets but it hasn't panned out this way....
Given the route the vast majority of Irish dairy are on which is a low cost grass based system based around a 5 to 5500 litre cow they can't take advantage our simply won't as their conditioned this way to drive some extra milk per cow out of purchased feed which definitely pays at the minute with maize meal sub 200 euro delivered into the yard and milk the right side of 30 cent, have done all the sums here and I can't for the life of me with feed prices so low how the mentality of lads is I better jump from 100 to 150 cows throwing out for arguements sake 750000 litres instead of staying at 100 feeding more meal/breeding a high production 7500 litre plus cow and throwing out the same milk as 150 on a grass based low input system

Milk output up by 1% last year was due to a desperate spring in some parts. Almost 20% more milk here for April this year over last year with same number of cows. Cows were still in at night at this time last year here.

jaymla627 wrote: »

Interesting snippet I read this week was cow numbers increased on Irish farms by 8% but total milk output only went up by 1% in 2016, it's crazy what's happening at farm level with lads chasing numbers at all costs and then after all this their losing hundreds of litres per cow per lactation while loading on debt to finance the infrastructure and carry through extra replacements our buy cows to achieve all this.....
The grass mantra that teagasc has built it's castle on is all well and good but what it had factored into this was feed prices for grains for all those "inefficient " high cost producers like the Americans and co would stay high our at least their would be years like 2012/2013 when grains would be expensive thus curtailing production and meaning no massive build up of dairy stocks on world markets but it hasn't panned out this way....
Given the route the vast majority of Irish dairy are on which is a low cost grass based system based around a 5 to 5500 litre cow they can't take advantage our simply won't as their conditioned this way to drive some extra milk per cow out of purchased feed which definitely pays at the minute with maize meal sub 200 euro delivered into the yard and milk the right side of 30 cent, have done all the sums here and I can't for the life of me with feed prices so low how the mentality of lads is I better jump from 100 to 150 cows throwing out for arguements sake 750000 litres instead of staying at 100 feeding more meal/breeding a high production 7500 litre plus cow and throwing out the same milk as 150 on a grass based low input system

Most of that increase in numbers is heifers comming into the national herd, so %production lower than %cows coming in.
We can't have an increase in mature cows over night.
Wait till you see the figures in two years, when the brunt of expansion has happened and the national herd matures

yewtree wrote: »

From what I see most lads seem to be managing expansion fine, the lads looking in over the ditches seem more worried.
Most of the expansion makes sense particularly as herds mature.
considersing the price of milk in 2016 it is amazing milk output went up, maybe we are not that uncompetitive

There's a hell of a lot of lads loading on cows without much thought either ,too many worried that the lad next door has more cows so now I have to or taking a lot of the general crap from some in the journal and other publications as gospel .life is going to pass a lot by real quick unless they slow down and take a step back working 12 hours plus a day is not sustainable long term the amount of accidents and deaths on farms over the last few years is scary and in a lot of cases it is from taking unnesecary risks tiredness and burnout

mahoney_j wrote: »

There's a hell of a lot of lads loading on cows without much thought either ,too many worried that the lad next door has more cows so now I have to or taking a lot of the general crap from some in the journal and other publications as gospel .life is going to pass a lot by real quick unless they slow down and take a step back working 12 hours plus a day is not sustainable long term the amount of accidents and deaths on farms over the last few years is scary and in a lot of cases it is from taking unnesecary risks tiredness and burnout

The issues around burnout and farm safety are real I know frist hand the reality of a serious farm accident. I just dont think these issues started when quotas finished they have always been there.
farmers have to make up there own mind about expansion nobody is putting a gun to your head and making you milk more cows. I have been in teagasc groupso a long time and I have always been told it's efficency before expansion

yewtree wrote: »

The issues around burnout and farm safety are real I know frist hand the reality of a serious farm accident. I just dont think these issues started when quotas finished they have always been there.
farmers have to make up there own mind about expansion nobody is putting a gun to your head and making you milk more cows. I have been in teagasc groupso a long time and I have always been told it's efficency before expansion

Farm accidents have always been there granted ,they have accelerated tho in last few years
No one putting gunnto anyone's head re expansion but too many are totally buying a lot of the crap printed and preached by some and aren't strong enough to ask hard questions ,think a plan and take a step back more cows don't mean more money just in a lot of cases way more work ,hassle and fatigue fully agree on efficiency before expansion

kowtow wrote: »

It is worth remembering that the favoured teagasc definition of competitiveness is actually margin related... costs vs output. There's some academic backup for that but it does disadvantage us an an export only country. If there are any countries in Europe fit to export solids globally we are certainly among them.

If you look in one of the appendices they have a comparison with both "irish average" and "irish expanded". The expanded herd contains, from memory, 133 cows. I'd be interested to see the logic behind the choice of that figure because it sounds like the obvious sweet spot for a full time labour unit on a grass based system. In cash cost terms it will still benefit hugely from the inherited farm and can almost be run on family labour... in total economic cost terms it will presumably be a model of efficiency because cows / man is just about maxed out. 160 might tell a very different story.

I'd like to see the comparative impact on cash costs at 150 cows and 200 as well as the total economic cost.

There is a lot in that report if you read it carefully because they've covered their arses. The headlines people draw from it tell you more than the content.

What interests me is the potential risk in going from 100 to 200 cows, walking away from the defensive security of cash costing, and becoming less rather than more competitive/ viable along the way. I've always felt there is a dangerous cul-de-sac in that part of the growth curve and by talking too much about cash costs we are sugar coating the financial realities of expansion, even in this low interest rate environment.

Meanwhile Agriland have done a very detailed and indepth analysis of that report also...

http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/ireland-still-one-of-the-lowest-cash-cost-producers-of-milk-internationally/

GrasstoMilk wrote:

There name should be changed to ' Agri (copy&paste) land

Yes. Using exactly the same section of the report their headline could have been "irish milk still competitive due to free land and labour and everlasting buildings"

They've taken depreciation out of the cash costs as well.

rangler1 wrote: »

welcome to the world of the drystock farmer.....it's called competition.

It's a concept I am familiar with.

freedominacup wrote: »

You were told that you were going to be disappointed. Any chance you'd put up a more comprehensive analysis on the thread?

The following is the summary within the report itself.....so different from the headline chyte they've been touting...no imputed charges for owned resources....free capital...free labour....

Teagasc would be a pretty profitable business too if you didn't have to include its capital and labour in its costs....

In summary, it appears that the competitive position for Irish dairy farms outside the EU was very positive when
cash costs were considered in isolation from imputed charges for owned resources. Based on data from the
IFCN, the larger representative Irish dairy farm had the lowest cash cost to output ratio amongst the key
international milk producing regions examined, namely, the US, NZ and Australia. This result is consistent with
previous research by Thorne and Fingleton (2006) and Donnellan et al., (2011).
However, as the opportunity cost of owned resources are not included in this calculation this indication of future
competitiveness can only be considered to be valid in the short to medium term. In the longer term adjustment
within the sectors will be a reality. Hence, total economic costs, which include imputed charges for owned
resources must be considered to gauge the longer term ability of Irish dairy farmers to compete on a global
scale.
When economic costs are considered, the competitive ranking for the Irish dairy sector, for the average size
farm in particular, slipped relative to the other countries examined. As was similarly concluded in chapter 4, for
competitiveness within the EU, this finding could also be considered as a warning signal for the future
competitive performance for the average sized Irish dairy farm in a global environment. .However, based on the
analysis in this chapter, the ability of the larger Irish dairy farms to compete in the longer term in a global
context was affirmed. Furthermore, as Irish dairy farming transforms to larger scale production in a no quota
environment, the Irish milk sector’s competitive position will be strengthened and be better able to cope with a
cost/price squeeze in the future.

Ffs.
Spent 20mins writing shyte and lost.
Who fecked up the site?