Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Anyone else find this all a bit depresssing?

Here we have one of the greatest countries on earth for growing pasture. We have farmers ahead of the research in balancing soils. Balancing so that it requires less npk to be bought and applied. Balancing so that the life flourishes in soil and carbon sequestration is optimized which means more free draining soil whilst being more drought resistant. Balancing so that the nutrient quality of the beef and milk is optimized. Balancing so that less dosage products are required. Balancing so that more animals can be kept for less inputs.

Now we have the former taoiseach Michael Martin saying the Government needs to buy land out of agriculture for rewilding and to meet emission targets. He's saying so from the pressure put on by the likes of the biodiversity assembly. Which say there's a crisis. Drive from Killucan, Westmeath, to the Curragh, Kildare and say there's a crisis.

The emission angle on agriculture is to give the idea further credence and authority. But the emissions from bogland and wet land are neither mentioned nor measured (if they are it's not put out in the press nor government papers). I looked myself rudimentally at both methane emissions from what google threw up for current wet/bogland area in ireland and cattle numbers. From the wetland it came back as 576 million kgs of methane and the cattle population as 746 million kgs of methane a year. Now this is wetland we already have before more is rewetted. There's also methane emissions from everywhere in nature. River mud in low tides, under the bark of trees, gets expelled itself from plants in wet conditions.

This is all well and good. It's been that way since earth first had life. But is it right we've now been demonised and have government officials that now see agriculture as an accessory not a necessity for the country. And looks to be following the suit corporate world in looking to greenwash their business by buying their way through to righteousness with thoughts of buying land for "rewilding" purposes.

Where'd all the sane people go?

If I'm not

Seeing all these PIAs going through the courts I wouldn't be so sure. The legal system is so expensive in this country not many go this route to recover money owed

Plenty of guys out there don't want to reduce numbers so. ( Who wants too) for nothing extra. Fertilizer limits, keeping calves and stocking bands. So land will be expensive for the foreseeable future.

A **** way of doing business …and there will be implications in doing that ….

The tax free money is safe once the lease is signed I'm told. The contract has to be fulfilled by both parties subject to any break clauses.

Well if I was a landowner who leased out land and some smart arse pulled a stroke along above lines I’d go to a lot of rounds to make sure the person who took the land paid out the lease in full ….then turf him out

That’d be cheap land around here at the minute, there’s 7 and 10 year leases after being signed around here at €530 - €630 in the past few months and bps going back to landowner as well. Pure lunacy.

I think the problem is it was never anything to do with sane people in the first place. It’s the rural urban divide is the problem. Up to not that long ago there were always more rural votes available than urban. That has changed now so policies and decisions are made based on keeping the largest sector of the electorate happy. “Rich farmer” bashing is one of the number 1 hobbies of the urban dweller so that has now become important for the politicians also.

It's suit over wellie business. You hear the ads now of insurance businesses being carbon neutral. They make the claim by saying they saved carbon by switching to solar, wind, renewable electricity generation.

Farmers can't make that claim. Well I suppose we could but we're told we can't unlike other businesses where they go ahead anyway for advertising.

It's become about money and where they live and how they perceive things or if they've no knowledge what they're told. Michael Martin is pure Cork City central I believe and between that and Dublin City. Completely urban minded and he only knows what he's told of rural living and countryside. I.e citizens assembly.

He helped coillte a semi state to negotiate with Gresham House an investment company to look after the suits in coillte so it could still be run commercially as the enviros were using the government state aspect of coillte to pressurise coillte into the land not be used commercially any more but to go to horse logging and whatever else nonsense was being proposed. Gresham House was to put it out of reach of the enviros and keep the suits and bonuses going.

Michael with this suggestion of government buying land for rewilding is his attempt to placate the enviro lobby to allow the Coillte deal go through.

It's all suits now or second hand charity shops whatever the other side wear. Other side are really urban landlords with a supposed green sheen who take money from the highest multinational.

We've a bit of rotten element of back scratching going on. No sides are great. The oppositions not great. And the enviros who'd sell out to BRICS are definitely not great.

It looks like if you'd a passion for farming with a bit of get and go you'd be better off heading for south America.

I lived in a city for years and worked with plenty city folk and I never heard any rich farmer bashing. The only place I hear that from is beef farmers against dairy farmers.

Was getting land valuation done here for a transfer and chatting the auctioner he spends half of the week doing mediation where leases go wrong, with the way the Irish court system works you could be a few years getting a issue like above sorted and at that even where you get a judgement in your favor getting the money paid is another thing.

If you break the lease to turf out a tenant who's not paying you have to pay back any tax free money in that year gained over the entire lease

Yes...leases have been done linked to milk price.

There's no free loaders clogging up the veterinary system