EU Proposal on calf transportation. NO MOVE UNDER 35DAYS

Market sets the price, there's nothing wonderful about our food that we can get above the local produce prices in a country, I've seen our produce in foreign supermarkets and the local stuff being picked up in preference

That's a great post and one that teagac et Al should have been thinking about when they were pushing the expansion Idea

Here's a graph of the last few years beef price, there's no difference in the EU beef price and Irish.

Irish beef in UKis not going to make as much as UK beef ,It'd even make less if it was labelled as Irish

If you see by the graph the irish price is often ahead of the EU price,

I was in europe numerous times when the Irish price was more than the country I was in. If you're not happy with the EU price you probably shouldn't be producing beef

Young bulls in europe are better than the irish bulls, any that I have seen in europe would be E and U grade, no comparison,and even if there was E grade bulls here there wouldn't be enough to create a viable supply. Irish bulls would be very poor compared to European, Europen would be mostly purebreds

That graph is probably the best comparison for prime beef

I’m not saying that I either agree or disagree with what you’re saying about Bord Bia, I’m only saying that a graph comparing 2 entirely different products to make it look like we’re ahead of the European price is bullsh**e!

Why don’t they base it on heifers so? Or use all steers, or all dry cows or basically anything you like so long as it’s the same product?

I don’t dispute a single word you’ve said there. I purposely didn’t state my thoughts on Bord Bia until now as it was irrelevant to the original point I was making about the graph you linked to.

I agree with 99% of what you’re saying about Bord Bia. From memory I think the running costs of Bord Bia is about €75 million. There are about 1.8 million cattle, 2.8 million sheep and 3.8 million pigs slaughtered in Ireland every year. Add in live exports and and figures for any other enterprise Bord Bia covers and divide it up per ton of meat or whatever way you like and I’d estimate it’s about €20 per beef animal to cover Bord Bia’s costs.

I have no doubt that we would be a hell of a lot more than €20 per beef animal worse off without the advertising and promotional campaigns of Bord Bia so in my opinion they are certainly giving us a better return than we would achieve without them.

But none of that changes my original point on the graph you linked too. It is comparing 2 different products. It would be the same as comparing the price of heifers to the price of cows, pointless because they are 2 different products. A true price comparison would compare 2 identical products.

Edit to add; My figures and calculations are from memory and my head so I’m open to correction on any of them.

What was the angus beef fiasco?

Jrx been "doctored" as aax on the blue card....

As Jay said, selling jerseys as angus. When tests were carried out on ‘Irish Angus’ beef it was found to have no Angus in it whatsoever…but loads of dairy farmers were able to get their jex calves off as angus, so all good.

There was quite a furore at the time. McDonalds are even using French Angus now, in fact the AA breed is all the rage now with a lot of farmers abandoning the native breeds to produce French Angus. Imported Irish bred Angus are not wanted as breeding stock because, I suppose, of the lack of credibility in Irish producers. Funny how that fiasco wasn’t reported in Ireland while it made big news in Europe…green washing is fine until you get called out on it.

Criminal offence...

Should have have been sent back through our accreditation system and the purpotrators charged...

Zore tolerance for that xhyte...some damage done to genuine farmers..

Seems like there was a sting in the tail for the breeders as well 😅

Just as well it isn’t a criminal offense or the majority of xbred farmers would be doing a stint inside.

I remember at the time that the Germans were in the same boat with tests showing angus meat to be as low as 6% pure.

The French are a knowledgeable society of meat consumers that demand honest labeling and genuine produce. It’ll be a long time before Irish meat will be held in the same regard as before…and it’s Irish farmers are to blame, not Larry et al.

We get a spot inspection about twice a year where dna is tested from ear cartilage. The fine for declaring the breeding incorrectly is €3300 for the first one…I don’t know how much for the second offense. All I can say is that it works very well indeed.

A good few of the Co-op's and and a lot of there high value customers have already indicated that they will not tolerate this. The Bobby calf set up in NZ is under pressure. If dairy farmers can live with a milk band of 25-30c/K then that fine. If you want a decent price for milk then this is not an option

I do not know why people suggest scenario's that are not compatible with modern ethics and sensibilities.

It's not so much the cost of feeding. That is the small part. The flawed thinking around expansion where ''the calf was not taught about or factored into the equation'' by either the co-op or the advisory agencies is becoming a bigger issue every year.

The big problem is facilities and labour. If you can dump calves off the farm at an average of 14 days it's reduced the cost of both of the above. Your calf rearing shed can work 3 timeslots of calves. It's especially an issue on larger units where there is over 100 cows and labour is hired in. Big difference between managing your replacement heifers and half that amount of other calves to having facilities for every calf that is born on the farm

Well if you think you can change the mind set of over a billion people in the area where our customers supply. They are not going to damage that market.

Like I said in my previous post ''I do not know why people suggest scenario's that are not compatible with modern ethics and sensibilities''

There is a prayer

''God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.''

In this case it's an unwinnable battle even if we wanted to win it a d Most can see no reason for it. Any business model has to accept there are costs in that model you have to accept

P&O gave up carrying calves on the Landbridge because of negative publicity regarding calf transport. The reason export is going is because of welfare issues. If we cannot f@@king export calves in 2-5 years WTF makes you think you can put a slaughter scheme in place for 2-400k calves. Wake up and smell the coffee.

On African charity or any other questions thing you want to call it. The safest thing for babies is Brest feeding, any concerted program planned from your suggestion would backfire with negative publicity. Baby food and hygiene is a huge issue in poorer countries.

Actually baby formula is more a second world issue than first or third world. In first world mother get parental leave to Brest feed, in third world most women do. It second world working women that buy infant formula so they can go back to work

Kiwi farmers are allowed why can't the paddies do it, given we are actually receiving lower milk prices then them, your argument that woke vegan twitter warriors will shut it down doesn't hold water, why is humane bull calf slaughter for food, unethical but slaughtering lambs is perfectly fine

The industry here has enough issues to be dealing with without further toxic associations with the NZ "Dirty Dairy" model. Plus there is a world of difference between lambs reared for several months outdoors and bobby calves.

This is a very disturbing view from a fellow dairy farmer .I can see a very bleak future for dairy in Ireland if this ideology of pumping out milk at all costs and dairy farmers wonder why they get bad press

What other solutions are their? If co-ops go the arla route where no calf born on farm can be slaughtered before 8 weeks of age, then they are going to have to compensate their suppliers for the financial hit in building calf sheds to accommodate these calves and then the real prospect of giving them away at the 8 weeks if larry and Co faced with a wall of cattle year in and out knowing they have a guaranteed supply, will pay prices that the Brazilians wouldn't even be happy with.....

All of the above complimented with soaring input costs realistically means the beef man mighten even take the calves at 8 weeks, so they'll be going for slaughter anyways....

I thought a calf could be sold without it being a "movement" once it is under a certain age, so while it could not be exported it still could be sold on to a calf rearer or even a calf exporter who would hold the calf until it was 35 days old

The other solution is to breed proper stock like what was done for generations in Ireland and get away from the jersey and Holstein rubbish that’s being bred now. Go back to British friesian cows crossed with white heads, Angus, Charlaois, Simmental etc. Then your calves will be worth rearing and you’ll have plenty of customers for them.

Yea you’ll take a bit of a hit on your milk production but stay at the sh**e dairy farmers are at now and you’ll have to take the hit on the cost of building facilities to keep your calves for 7 or 8 weeks and maybe give them away for nearly nothing then just to get them out of the yard.

The choice would be up to you as to which option suits you best.

So dairy farmers don't want to rear the calf and don't want to give them away cheap in case someone else might just make something on them.