Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

It will for me atm any way, we’re just on the edge of heading into higher band and selling good kgs ms

for us here I’ll just focus on the percentages and less on the litres and still try sell the 560 kgs /cow

That's a very grey area and a boogeyman been used to scare lads, when you see the slap on the wrists lads are getting for discharging slurry into waterways leading to fish kills, you logically need to dive into it a bit more, and work out what exactly they can actually do to farms like you mention above that aren't actually polluting our showing up on their radar, re high nitrates in adjoining waterways etc....

Wouldn’t look on it as a punishment …..I do think those bands are a load of ……. Though …if anywhere near 6300 then you’ll be over it pretty quick through maturing stock alone ….drive on into the higher band and to hell with it …..don’t get this stigma some seem to have re keeping less cows ….every herd has cows they could cull …less cows …better quality cows …more milk …more solids …less nitrates pressure .all positive

From recent Oireachtas debate on banding.....

Bill Callanan DAFM

I will address the issue of banding, which is what the Deputy is getting at. From our perspective, we were operating a single band across all cows. Administratively, that was easy for us. People might not realise it, but the Department performs an administrative check on every single farm for nitrates compliance. The checks are not universal, but we perform checks comparing single farm payments versus farms' animal identification and movement, AIM, data, that is, their livestock, in respect of every farm in the country. It is a large check and quite a number of farmers are non-compliant and suffer a penalty as a consequence.

Moving from a single band will be a challenge, but we are putting our hand up to do that. At European level, most countries were working a banding system and the Commission was adamant that it was a minimum requirement in terms of discussions-----

Deputy Micheal Fitzmaurice

It was the Commission that made Ireland introduce banding?

Mr. Bill Callanan

Absolutely. The Commission was clear on that. The bands, as constructed, are scientifically determined by the nitrates emissions associated with relative categories. I am aware that presentations have been made to the committee. We examined having six bands. There were complications around that. There are pluses and minuses. The structure that is being put in place maximises those in the low and middle bands. Approximately 15% of farms are in the top-----

Banding is an EU requirement, not something dreamed up by our own government. Fact.

Setting the upper band at 7000kg would have resulted in a 118kg N outcome from the calculation for farms in the top category. As the number of farms between 6500 and 7000 is relatively small, the total impact on those farms at the higher level of output would have been more negative if 7000kg cut-off point were used. There will always be a cluster of farms around a certain cut-off point that feel hard done by but if you had say 6 bands then there would be even more famers complaining about being the wrong side of the line. More lines, more marginal cases.

In effect then, whether intended or not (!), the 8000+ litre herds are gaining most by the 6500kg banding as they are not being penalized for their 1500 litres of milk above the threshold. Also, for herds at say 7000, they can drive on now with no additional bands on the horizon to trip them up. The highest output herds have been well treated in this setup.

If I was you straights I would take the wife out for dinner this evening and tell her your sorry and keep the rental cause the reality is that farming in Ireland could go either way so I wouldn't be making any rash decisions based on banding. It's like when the quotas went everyone was freaking out about trying to stay under but the majority of us went over and paid the superlevy and I didn't see any dairy farmer dying of the hunger

Technically is it possible to buy in cull cows in lets say September and finish them over the winter, would this bring up your average number of cows for the year and therefore reduce the average litres per cow keeping some farms under 6500kg?

If you don't draw any sfp, don't submit any bps at all, their is no penalties, but the cheque every autumn is hard for lads like yourself to give up

Is it good enough to grow a tillage crop? Minimal time input and a crop in your pit each autumn.

On the bands yes directive comes from Europe but a few groups and one main one determined Ireland’s outcome ….they didn’t seek any widespread input into ways this could be mitigated against ….various different groups and individuals made submissions but they weren’t listened to ….smaller fragmented family farms were treated shabbily as bands as now affect them disproportionally …..if over or near 6300 now you may just cull the ones with enough milk for the tae and drive on as efficiently as u can ,milking less cows and doing more milk per cow just seems to be looked down on for some reason …..a lot of the reason why bar grass and form filling im turning away from Tegasc .advice for me has and is too one dimensional twosrds kiwi dairying