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Climate Change

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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,761 ✭✭✭amacca


    I hope farmers as a group give up their differences, wake up and demand fair play here....


    You want changes then the truth must be told, not half truths and massaged statistics


    My own mother was starting to believe the guff she heard out of a spokesperson on prime time the other evening.....she said other industries have already taken up to 60% cuts....not one person asked her, what were these industries etc etc


    It's shocking the stuff that's allowed be said without question/verification .....



  • Registered Users Posts: 494 ✭✭Silverdream


    Very hard to stomach what our TDs are pushing on us. It's not that Climate change isn't happening, it is the way Agriculture is being blamed and Targeted. Cutting numbers here is nonsense when all that will happen is the production will move to South America which in most parts the Cattle are not even Tagged half the time or have very lacklustre traceability. They can't even give an accurate figure of how much livestock are there. Yet they want to start cuts here!!

    Then we got the Airline Industry, no Cuts there, the 2 foreign Holidays a year is all ok again.

    Construction Industry, again no cuts, if anything it's worse now than ever in the Celtic tiger days. I pass a couple of huge Muck mansions being built at the moment, and they are huge, miles away from any Schools, no Transport links or any services you have to drive everywhere. So where's the Green thinking behind this kind of carry on.

    No wonder farmers are raging over this,



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,761 ✭✭✭amacca


    But will they cop on and work together...once they cripple you theres no coming back from it....it always appears to be thin end of the wedge stuff with them


    When it's shown to be complete and utter destructive nonsense maybe decades down the line that won't be any comfort to people whose lives were destroyed .....



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,952 ✭✭✭SuperTortoise


    A lot of sense being talked in this tread so far, unfortunately none of it will see the light of day in the media.

    The greens and RTE will keep feeding the general population bullshit to suit their agenda.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,429 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    Never interrupt your enemies when they're making a mistake and whoever you ask they'll tell you at least one of them is making a mistake.

    The whole emissions thing is going to become a money making racket pay to pollute.

    The plant based/ vegan thing is big business too. I don't see much pushing of fresh veggies going on. It's all factory made processed food. Hardly the most environmentally friendly option if that's the driver



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,626 ✭✭✭Lime Tree Farm


    And Boucher Hayes gets his dig in at the closing off stage of the interview

    https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22124731/



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,387 ✭✭✭✭Green&Red




  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I never get it right, but what was it Albert Reynolds said, "it's the little things".

    Unfortunately I don't see the greens walking, threatening is different. FF/FG don't want an election because of their crapness which will hand power to SF/+others, very likely also including the greens.

    If we recall, the greens held onto power during the collapse of the country until their fingernails bled.



  • Registered Users Posts: 347 ✭✭haybob


    I'm a reasonable man, I'm too media shy for Joe Duffy can I ask honest question I dont know the answers to, in no particular order

    Soya milk v dairy milk, what's the environment impact of producing soya milk including transport into the country v our own dairy sectors impact, I'd include other meat and dairy based substitutes in that too.

    If we agree to the targets tomorrow, what is the impact on production?? What I'm getting at here is how do we feed the population ?? Both of this county and feck let's be daysent about it, the world.

    The rathgar crowd won't like the price of a ribeye in aldi after this ?? Simple supply and demand economics, there are other socio economic groups that will be effected too like.

    Fuel is only going to go up in both the short and long term, I don't know exactly what containers ships run on but I imagine it to be petroleum based, do they emit pollution ??

    Cheap flight anyone ?? Tourism can't be touched not even mentioned heard the ica or icmsa said it???

    All the greens are doing is pushing an urban rural divide, what the people need to realise is less emissions mean less production which means, ding, ding, ding, less food and more expensive food. This point is NOT being made..

    Average handy lads like me will eventually vote healy rae or sinn fein... out of pure sickness or is it thickness

    Last but not least my bit of turn for my mother's 40 year old stanley, 3.0 petrol range rover with no hitch ??? Business class flights .. I wonder.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭riddles


    Off the top of my head 80% of all Soy produced is going straight for animal feed. I don’t eat the stuff but I assume that 80% would replace a lot of animal protein which would reduce the need to use that land for animal husbandry reducing animal waste methane and all the energy consumed in processing animals.

    we outsourced manufacturing to China a knowing they would not apply EPA standards that the EU requires to meet emissions targets. The container ships are one of the most highly polluting means of transport.

    we import beef from Brazil and Argentina even though there’s no traceability and it’s causing rain forest clearance to increase beef production.

    There’s a lot of nonsense about the whole thing. The Irish Green Party and greens around Europe are not very good and selling the message or indeed delivering tangible outcomes.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,429 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    A lot of the soy in animal feed is GM, it reminds me of the talk of chlorinated chicken in the US during brexit. I don't know if there's anything wrong for human consumption but currently I don't think the EU allow it.

    Soybean meal is different to Soy milk though, I'd imagine it uses a lot of water and energy to produce. A comparison with dairy is valid. I don't have the figures though.

    There's going to be a lot of energy used processing plant based materials if we eliminate animals. Big companies will make sure of that. We won't all be eating more fresh legumes (beans, lentils etc.) They'll all be in processed food.

    Reducing animal production here will only increase production elsewhere but we're probably negligible on the world stage. The problem is a lot of land here is nor viable for tillage. Likely upshot would be we import even more food and the government would have to find new industries to replace the jobs for people currently indirectly employed by agriculture (think the vets secretary, the workers down the co-op store, the meat factory workers).

    There's a lot of talk about emissions but not what making cuts means in real life.



  • Registered Users Posts: 494 ✭✭Silverdream


    Why did we go through all the data gathering of the Beef data genomics, Beep, and other Schemes and not use the data then. The first step in reducing emissions from agriculture is to use the most efficient Systems. For example on my own farm I have some 5 star Cows that weigh less than 500kg with Weanlings weighing 350-400kg. At the same time I have 850kg Cows that have 250kg Weanlings. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which ones need Culling.

    An 800kg animal eats more, uses more resources than the smaller animal and often rears an inferior calf. So instead of our IFA boyo's promoting nonsense like seaweed and Bio-gas why don't they focus on what can easily be achieved. Use the data available to argue the case.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,139 ✭✭✭Dinzee Conlee


    But it’s not beef cattle they are after it’s dairy isn’t it? Saw some show on TV3 last night and John Gibbons was on it - and he specifically called out dairy above all others. They want to reduce dairy, and expand tillage & horticulture. (For now anyways, it could well be dairy first, then beef)

    But if food inflation continues the way it is - will the market dictate? If this climate change continues as is - with more droughts. Will farm gate prices continue to increase and so potentially less animals could bring in the same profit?

    Maybe the big question here - will this continued food inflation, and more money to the primary producer be allowed to happen?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭minerleague


    Will a day come and governments add a tax ( like sugar or cigarettes ) to beef and dairy products? to reduce consumption



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,622 Mod ✭✭✭✭blue5000


    It seems a lot of the good stuff that farmers do is being left out of the equation. Take carbon sequestration for example, we have hedges, forestry and undisturbed grass land that AFAIK is not included in any calculation. We have to drag this back to the drawing board. Until air travel is calculated all negotiations are off.

    How are they going to make us reduce cow numbers? CAP cuts? Most of the really big dairy farmers will be getting very little from CAP after next year’s review.

    If the sums were done properly a lot of us are already pretty damn close to carbon neutral already, there’s not a word about this.

    If the seat's wet, sit on yer hat, a cool head is better than a wet ar5e.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,074 ✭✭✭✭Say my name


    Me thinks dawgs suggestion of a cow reducing compensation scheme on here hit some heads.

    It's on the front page of the farmers journal today. Must be some pull again.

    I was just thinking about an organic tillage farm here. They get their fym and slurry from conventional cow farms. If the farms consider the scheme where does the fym and slurry come from then?

    You'd have to think about the scheme and that would push you to tillage. And to further that there's another push to organic. On farm here I can cut the N rates but only by maximising slurry and fym. If I was in tillage and organic and without these I could only see the farm getting run down.

    A friend of father's was here recently with a recording of a landmark program filmed in the 80's of himself (an organic farmer) and even then he said he needed 5 years pasture for 1 years tillage and even at that they were using blood and bone meal at the time as a nitrogen source. With the current idiot talk of just tillage and rewilded ground that does away with the 5 years pasture as no livestock allowed.

    There's nobody from farming let alone any tillage reps to say "Can we just not cop on a bit". Only winners in this conversation are the grain merchants.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,636 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    The livestock feed imports is a pretty big stick to beat the livestock sector with here alright - that and the fact that it was reported this week that Ireland imports 80% of its food which isn't a great look either for a country thats meant to have a world leading, Green agri sector. Now obviously we can't grow stuff like Bananas or grapes but the amount of imported stables like Potatoes, veg,Apples, raspberries etc. is problematic both from an emissions point of view and the rising cost of same due to energy prices and logistic issues. This all needs some serious market corrections/intervention which can only be done on a Government/EU level to achieve better self sufficiency here and across the EU. It also calls into question successive government food/farming strategies that focused on a narrow range of bulk agri commodities for export markets which pushed farmers into intensification and specialization with the inevitable fall outs we see via rising input costs, decreasing margins and the need to reign in pollution of all types.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,636 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    After all the huffing and puffing that figure was probably the form horse - depending on your perspective it ain't too bad given what other sectors are meant to be carrying. The EU/Gov now need to put their money where there mouth is to fulfill all the talk about a "just transition"



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,941 ✭✭✭yosemitesam1


    Is there a plan of how that 25% is achieved or was it a case of come up with a target then see how can we achieve it?



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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,761 ✭✭✭amacca


    I'd say it's that second one and squeeze the weakest......I'll believe its a just transition when I see it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,105 ✭✭✭Grueller


    It might as well be 100% given that there is fcuk all chance of any sector meeting their targets in my humble opinion



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,464 ✭✭✭jaymla627


    Is it really? Soya bean meal is a by-product of the crushing process for oil, do you want to start another rant about soya hulls, guess what their a by-product of, our maybe sugar beet pulp guess what that's a by-product off, our golden grain distillers guess what's that's a by-product off, you could start rambling re how nearly 100% of the above is feed to animals and how this land could be used to grow crops to feed humans but guess what it all ready is



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,210 ✭✭✭tanko


    My heart bleeds for that gobshyte in Sligo, he doesn’t know how he is going to survive only milking 550 cows instead of 700. You couldn’t make it up.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,105 ✭✭✭Grueller




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,429 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    His problem is probably that he has a high cost low margin business with huge capital investment mostly owed to the bamk.

    550 cows may not be viable, its too big for a 1 man operation and too small to pay enough staff.

    He may actually have to cut back to a 100 cows or whatever a man can manage on his own but there's probably a huge parlour and sheds to be paid for and that's a bigger problem than the cows.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,210 ✭✭✭tanko




  • Registered Users Posts: 4,512 ✭✭✭JeffKenna


    This is the kind of stuff that turns the public against farmers. I mean 550 cows and he's on the news complaining. Pure and utter greed.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,751 ✭✭✭893bet


    I don’t see it as greed. Man made huge investment based on projection of his herd size and output. Now rules are gonna be changed.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 11,059 ✭✭✭✭wrangler


    I was on a trip to New zealand wth him four or five years ago, a hard worker, He was building a rotary parlour then, a 70 unit I think and was after buying land so I could believe that he needed to be milking 700..... He'd be more likely to buy more land than to cut back numbers



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