I think it fair to say the minority who gave the 2 finger to the rules(and there is one in every parish) along with DAFM failures to reign such types in, is were the majority of the blame should lie. The industry itself and the likes of the IFA had years to get this issue to the top of their agenda if they wanted to maintain the derogation. In that respect the Minister should have been told by them to sort the omni shambles in his own Department on the matter
if you had a 100ha and your down 3000kg of N that equates to 37 cows, so for the lads with a big stretch of land and big numbers, it would be a substantial outlay, even say the lad with 40ha in the higher band will have to cut back 11 cows and say 11 cows @8000 ltrs x 30 cent, is still €26400
You answered your question there ….farm with 170 in mind …..170 kg organic n will determine viability and of investement is worth it ….let’s not be flippant tho dropping to 220 which is after comming after banding will have a huge affect on a lot of farms …..silence from the opposition political parties is deafening ….
Industrial Spruce forestry and ongoing peat removal/drainage by the likes of BNM are big players in water quality issues too, especially in catchments that have recently lost top level status in mostly upland areas and the Shannon Basin(which have declined by nearly 90% since the 80's!!) - and the so called Greens in government have done FA on either of these issues!!😤
In fairness they have had a number of prosecutions against Irish Water recently and have high lighted the sewage issue in all their recent reports as being among the main water quality pressures along with AG.
What is the cost difference between the 14,6 and 16,6 slats, I am assuming that the 16,6 is much heavier.
Sometimes one wonders if there is some truth behind the old adage that the stupid son was the one that was given the farm.
Great post M.
I definitely agree with most of your post except for the political aspect. Europe will not allow the downward spiral of water quality, and going down the Dutch route of trying to disrupt national politics, won’t help anyone. Europe doesn’t give a damn anymore about farmers. They’ve a green agenda now and the green lobby is powerful.
Dont be too hard on yourself.
Don't worry the ploughing match is coming up. All the plump baldy comb over old lads licking the politicians holes.
They will wheel out that old woman and say that the ploughing match is no place for protest. People will go,say nothing, buy their plastic stick and go home mumbling to themselves that the government are useless
Your a pack of fuuucking cowards the hole lot of ye. They will bring back rates on farm land yet when they see what push overs you all are
Spreading slurry in closed season is within control of individual farmers. Practice needs to be called out for the damage it is doing to water quality which is why we have the new limit. The big deterioration in water quality has been in the dairy areas - no point in quoting the red herring of faulty sewage systems. Those engaging in spreading in closed season have either inadequate storage or too many cows or a combination of both. Need to face the reality on their own farms.
Fully agree on spreading slurry out of season ….no one wants to shop a neighbour but at this stage there is no excuse nor should there be ….a minority are screwing things up for the majority ….guy spreading out of season rarely gets caught but a heavy handed dept inspector will rock up to a lad that dosnt spread out of season …..records in tact and yard in very good shape and he’ll find holes to pick after lots of digging ….and most of these would be very minor in comparasion
water quality isn’t as you say deteorating in all the big dairy areas ….timmalagoue is an example …faulty sewage tanks and councils pumping (knowingly )raw sewage to rivers and sea far bigger polluters than u think
as farmers atm no matter what we do it’ll never be enough in the eyes of some …..getting fairly fed up of it now
Timoleague in Catchments programme - shows what can be done when a few changes are made at farm level. Trend in water quality reports still has strong association between increase in cow numbers & water quality issues. Sewage discharge issues are all over the country in dairy & non-dairy areas. Can't deny increase in nitrate levels in particular in estuaries in South & South East. Talking to farm leaders in private they recognise the problem but probably need to be more vocal about it with their membership.
The IFAc were too busy with more serious issues, making sure no suckler farmers got paid to reduce cow numbers and putting plans in place to fly calves out of the country. Do you not remember the last presidential candidate debate with the great Justin.
The nitrates derogation was dealt with in less that 30 seconds. Justin asked were they all in favour of the derogation and
the nodding dogs moved on to more serious issues about protecting the suckler herd and of course the flying calves
Crying into the tae this morning..no more agri diesel from January 1st. Will cost me in excess of €100k per year.
There won’t be any demonstrations by farmers, probably just some tokenism by farmers unions.
Wont the cows cover that in fairness,
With cheap grain and milk in the mid 40's, you have to be making a fortune
He's growing it himself for nothing........ no inputs allowed sooooo its like white gold as the shite bags round here were proclaiming .............
👏👏
TBF if I remember right milk producers in France did not receive the strong price Irish producers got last year. I think a lot of the UK was the same.
Lucky for them they did not get a chance to waste it
I honestly give up , read the bookgraph it's from July last year to july this year, for the past 12 months they have received the same price basically on a like for like litre of milk at the same solids, the bulls**t line last year of lads getting 70 plus cent for a litre of milk was only down to the fact the fat and protein % was hitting 5% plus and 4% plus, but the cows doing this where probably doing maybe 10-14 liters of milk a day, the other fact that the high 50's base prices coincided with alot of herds lowest production months of the year, as a % of total milk supplied for 2022 only circa 25% of a average spring calving herd got their mik away at mid 50's base price
Who's the waster you are referring to?
How would a dairy farmer have wasted last years profits? I reinvested it in buying 54 acres close by and don't see that as a waste. Big help going forward with nitrates.
My neighbour who milk 30 cows wasted last year windfall upgrading to a 2010 case tractor from a 50 year old mf 165,I suppose we all can't be as wise as yourself living in misery!!
I did something similar only a smaller scale. Turning out to be one of my better investments I think.
Definitely not a waste of last years milk price. Worst case scenario it's storing last years profits and hopefully increase in value.
In my early thirties so it l be beneficial going forward. Would love to know what an example of a waste of last years price would be.
We were doing 17 l late last September when we were doing 5.10 fat and 4.01 pr
Fair going what did ye average % wise for 2022 must be getting near to 8.5% combined f and p
You hardly bought 54 acres on the back of one good year.
Just looking at average price we got on icbf last year. 63.7 cents/litre for the year average. Milk solids of 553 kg/cow. 6900 litres/cow supplied. Hit 71.8 c/litre in September, 22 litres/cow at 3.94 protein and 4.57 fat. It was a strong price year in fairness.
On the back of the last 2 good years yes. Slowly expanded numbers every year since 2015 and had the facilties and cow numbers built up.
