Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

I'm in derogation. I keep all calves on farm to finish at 24-30 months. Fresian bullocks and whitehead. I keep all heifers on farm. I could send these to contract rearer. I could get rid of the beef enterprise and sell all calves at 4 weeks old Instead of keeping to 24 months. That would reduce my nitrogen below the limit and I could add on more cows with both of those options been taken.

Because there can be 2 generations on farms

as another poster said you must have more than 100 cows if you call yourself a large dairy farmer or is it carpet farming you’re at ?

Now ur making sense taught u were losing the plot

Ok lad

Not a dairy farmer, I have sucklers & dairy calf to beef. The issues I can see for dairy farmers are.

Land currently used by non dairy farmers will be rented by dairy farmers (just to stand still really) at circa €500 / acre that's a big additional expense on some dairy farms.

This will reduce the demand for calves. Dairy farmers who once reared calf to beef will now be selling these calves increases supply. To get rid of calves dairy farmers may have to pay farmers to take their calves.

Teagasc have been advising farmers in Cavan & Monaghan to farm that same as lads in the Golden Vale, that's just not sustainable.

I am hearing stories of farmers in Cavan & Monaghan walking away from leases as they can't afford them, in 1 case the Garda were even involved.

A sales rep (good lads to carry bad stories) was telling me a local dairy hero here told him "paying this months meal bill wasn't in his budget". If this is happening at the minute after a few great years what will happen if current milk prices continue for then 3-5 years?

I actually do most of the heavy work the wife does all paper work calves but its surprising how much time those two things take if she left me id be finished but i doubt she ever will

You own over 2000 acres man you must be one of the biggest land owners in the country tought i was big

Spring calving??, What kinda % is the MP. The hitch eye must be wore off the zero grazer with that much ground

I personally know some guys milking over 1000 cows they dont own near the land you own where in the country do u farm

Nitrates are nitrates, whether they come from the back end of a cow or they come from a fertiliser bag (E Burgess).

A proposal was put forward in the Water Quality committee (instigated by the minister to put forward ideas for lobbing to hold 250), that the derogation limit move to that required by the EU, but that the limit be made up of the combination of chemical and organic, meaning a farmer could choose to stay at 250 organic nut drop chemical to (say) 190...

I believe the minister "got to" the commissioner before this suggestion could get legs.

We now have Ryan with the narrative that derogation farmers can make up their income loss by supplying AD plants with their excess grass.

They will only have excess if they continue with the higher chemical applications.

You can see why the resistance to dropping the chemical application.

The moving of dero limits from 250 to 220 and the possible lower in the future will have knock on effects for more than the dairy industry. It will affect the beef and tillage trades hugely on more than just the land front.

Coming at it from the beef farmer side of the house the 3 major knock ons will be access to rented ground, which has be debated into a different stratosphere here and I'm not leaving terra ferme. Followed by potential effects to feedlots and finally extra numbers to the weekly kill for the next few months

I don't have figures, but I would suspect a large number of the contracted feeders would be in dero and close to the limits with the numbers of stock the are turning over, relying on imported feed and exporting of slurry. A pinch to these might be welcome to the beef trade, it will have knock on effects to the farmers who rely on the sale of forward stores through the mart,by reducing the numbers these feedlots can buy and finish.

The next is the beef trade for the coming months. The big question is how many are going to cull to get to 220 and if so how. Is the trade going to be presented with a large number of cows out of the parlour pre drying off, or will dairy farmers feed these cull until January. A controlled fashion will be needed. This will be an issue, as I feel most farmers won't be able to get access to enough ground in a limited supply land rental market thus leading to an offload for cows to reach the 220

Calf and incalf heifer sales have the potential to collapse. It's probably happening as we speak with in calf heifers. The calf issue will be interesting in the spring. A number of dairy farmers who may have a sideline of beef enterprise, be calf to beef, calf to store or calf to weanling, will pull the plug on this and offload calves as soon or drop down a peg on that ladder, so as to keep cow numbers up. What will this do in a market that is already flooded from late February to April. Surely the Dept could look to a simple solution on not counting the Nitrates of all animals under 12 weeks. This could help solve some issues.

On the tillage side, and the talk of Charlie's Chequebook coming out to increase tillage area this will further add to the land rental madness. Couple this with the changes of the past few years on the exports of slurry namely the doubling of volume and diesel costs, this makes it even harder

Think we can all agree Ryan is an ass!!

Look hes doing his best the way politican work is the look after the majority where votes will come from if they lose derogation farmers to another party there no great loss cus number is small.Look at the great acres scheme 45000 happy farmers being paid to do sfa there sure votes next election