Ending of the Common Agricultural Policy.

jaymla627 wrote: »

Maize has gone to 300 euros a ton on spot market and soybean over 500, a short sharp shock to the system re food prices climbing might focus a good few minds, dairy beef etc are going to have to climb pretty significantly once autumn/winter sets in as the price of producing them will be sky high, no farmer will be able to carry the can re grain prices and only getting 4 euro a kilo beef/34 cent a litre milk

All the above is rubbish. IFA was out taught and out caught by the INHFA on this CAP. Now it is running around like a headless chicken after virtually none of it's positions have had a positive outcome.

It's continual harping on about commercial farmers as if only those on high payments were commercial farmers. It's complete failure to recognise that those on these higher payments have had them for twenty years and now it is time to give other farmers a chance to survive.

If they are commercial they should be looking at the market to increase returns

Re your last line, I think Beef Plan tried that in 2019 🤣🤣😂

If you were ever on any of the national commitees you'd know that unless the commitees passed it as policy it wouldn't be lobbied for.

Whats happening is those concerned about their future happen to be on commitees and are opposing it. those members opposing IFA have let it happen by lack of involvement and maybe laziness. If I was there I'd be opposing it too and I certainly wouldn't be looking for a job...... the opposite in fact. I never wanted to be taking jobs that no one else would do.

Between the main commitees(beef dairy and sheep) there could be 250 + probably mostly better farmers deciding policy, you'd want to be a bit sad if you thought you'd get a plum job out of any of the work you'd be doing.

Make no mistake it's all thankless work, it's just that anything to do with CAP reform is more thankless than the rest

Lenin reportedly said 'the worse, the better".

I feel that way about things now, COVID has brought a lot of problems to a head.

Relying on Just in Time manufacturing and outsourcing jobs and factories all to Asia has really hit Europe and America hard.

Handing over energy security and supply to Russia has hit Western Europe very hard.

Both play into fertilizer shortages, which will show the world that food production is more essential than iPhone production etc.

That many industries are actually nationally strategic and shouldn't be in opponents hands.

That some things are bigger than the bottom line and need planning for regardless of the short term market gain.

so if we were to look at the macro view on CAP payments changing, I see our Minister is advocating 60k cap on all payments to irish farmers. would this have a disastrous effect on tillage farmers just at the moment we may need them more than ever to have a supply of home grown animal feeds? three neighbouring tillage men would have SFP of over 150k one of them was 230k i think, same man would own about 150 acres. tough to make tillage pay without that behind you. on diesel alone, how many times would you drive around a 20 acre field to get a crop of barley from harvest to harvest?

as far as i make out 2 out 3 are actually in big financial difficulty so they definitley are not set up for this by the looks of it, but i really dont know. get the feeling a lot of tillage men that are at it in a big way from 1970s will scale back or pull the plug over the next few years around here anyway. what effect will this have on land rental prices? woudnt be big dairy ground here.

One of my tenants has about thirty tractors and has branched away from agri work a bit, it looks like the way to go. A couple friends work for him on the agri side and claim that there's some mornings you wouldn't get a tractor in the yard..... the non agri side is so busy.

I'm sure if the profit is taken out of tillage he'll just rethink his operation.

The other big tillage operator here is developing his third 500 cow dairy herd

yeah not too many keen to go into cows here even though both farms ithout the rented ground they take would be big dairy farms if they wanted , all in one block both.

Worth noting that for 3.5mn in cash invested you'd want more than a really decent living.

I am giving the example where he wanted to remain in farming. Like I posted that option would have secured his future whether he decided to remain in Tillage, Drystock would be the lowest profit operation, but if he opted for dairying on even a 2-300 acre farm he would turn a huge margin

At that scale you go into a company setup. I be surprised if a tillage farmer and that size operation he was not incorporated anyway. You have dairy farmers with only 100 cows going for a company setup.

He also had the option over the last twenty years to diversify outside of farming.

TBH if a neighbour applied for permission to plant native forest along any of our boundaries I would object too. I've seen the destruction to grassland that shading (from sunlight) causes with both deciduous and evergreen trees. There is also a acute risk of acorn poisoning to livestock.

What do you mean when you said the farmers were causing damage when spreading slurry.

Plants that cause livestock poisoning -https://www.nadis.org.uk/disease-a-z/cattle/plant-poisoning-in-cattle/

IMO it is more evidence that the lunatics are running the asylum.

The quote "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" comes to mind.