Waz hast du gesaft
mine deutsch it sehr gut
ich verstahe
The language must be a factor when Teagasc are sending students to NZ, as in there's no language barrier. I'm sure plenty farmers in Holland and Germany speak good English but it's not a given.
I'd be with @Gawddawggonnit on this and would like to visit someplace in Germany, or maybe even the north of France. But then I don't speak German or French! So maybe someplace in the south of England.
I guess, as long as any operation was well run and loosely relevant to your own set-up, then you'd learn plenty in any country.
Re craic in NZ: It must be when you finish the placement and travel for a bit that the craic starts. I was talking to a cousin at Christmas who's not long back from a placement in NZ and she said it was very isolated where she was. And most of her class were in similar isolated places. They managed to meet up every few weeks but that was it.
French students/workers are useless, I should know! But what’s that to do with work experience..afraid the laziness would rub off onto Johnny and Mary??
There’s some serious organic dairy farms in Germany that are very well run and sustainable. The ‘organic’ side to livestock is just pure bullsh1t, but there’s a lot to be learned about growing grass/crops without the BAG etc. I was on one a few weeks back and I was impressed.
Sending youngsters to Holland should be banned..a poisoned countryside and false declarations being made wholesale, what’s positive to learn there?
For me, Germany or Austria on a large organic farm.
You’re missing the point. Majority go for the travel and the craic with friends and learn a bit too about large numbers while getting paid to work at something they’re interested in
You come across animal health issues there that you might only see here in smaller herds only once every 5 years
There is no carbon copy for any place, the biggest similarities between nz and ire is the grass based systems after that plenty differences. People may stop over there at 50 fair enough if they are tired but there is also the way farms change ownership and how they are run, much more movement there. In holland from the few places I've been too the farm ownership is really tied into family as the previous gen rely on that "purchase" by next gen as the pension in a lot of cases and I think it can then be written off by the current gen.
Have been on farms on the continent and there are plenty of them do as much skirting of regs as there are in other countries. Certainly encourage lads to travel and see other systems but at the end of the day it's putting it in where you are to see what works for you.
On labour side, We are competing not only with building sites or tertiary business for labour but such is the shortage of workers in the country we are competing against multinationals as well, something we can't do financially in alot of cases so it would need to be in the flexibility stakes we would compete. Facilities make a big difference but the cost with possibility of numbers forced down is a bit risk now
Totally wrong- my brother moved to New Zealand when he was 37- had never been there before- has 600 cows- animal welfare is a huge issue - actually feeding rates are twice as high as we are lead to believe- most farmers buffer with maize and he’s in the north island
he got a good education as he did his work placement in France for 2 years
Fact your experiencing far more health ….and enviro issues tells its own story about dairying there ……you’d learn more about good ainmal health and husbandry so those issues can be minimised etc in places like Holland ….plus how there adapting to an envirnoment where they are loosing there derogation.
Family near us used take a continental students for summer.french absolutely useless.the best were Austrians ,every one of them could work and teach you how to live and were great to make their way.i often used to say I'd send the lads over there cause if they fell in love with one of them they were made for life.
Must be 10 or 12 years ago we had some French students on "work placement" from a French agricultural college. They were worse than useless. Spoiled, with a sense of entitlement, they would expect you to tend to them all day long. Gave up on it after the first year.
But what about the craic.thats what most go for
I travelled NZ and I had no intention of milking cows over there. From what I hear from the teagasc fan boys it's the scale they are impressed with over there and come over here trying to replicate it. Numbers at all costs.....
You can hop on a plane and go to Europe any time and go visit those farms or go work there easily enough
heading off to nz or Australia requires a visa and some planning. You’re not going to go for a week or 2 when it takes over a day to get there
If you don’t go in your youth you’re probably not going to get there till you’ve the kids reared.
i know one person who is just back after travelling nz with his girlfriend after being there 6 years ago working. He reckoned it’s not as relevant to Ireland any more but getting to see the country is a great opportunity to get alongside having work alongside it
Why not send the next generation to a country that respects the environment and follow enviro best practice?
I’m putting forward for students to go onto the big progressive organic farms in the EU. There’s plenty of them about.
most go to experience the country too. Fantastic country with unbelievable scenery. Every young person should go for a stint to milk cows, for the travel benefit.
you will experience far more animal health issues in nz too due to herd size that you won’t get in smaller herds in Holland etc
Thats fine in theory but what actually happened in many cases was that the Kiwi system was copied and pasted word for word over here via Teagasc and DAFM without any thought for the consequences in terms of water quality, calf welfare issues etc. I wouldn't characterize is as "low" input either as their industry has been suffering from inflationary pressures in a big way too in terms of heavy Chem fert, Herbicide etc. usage
But we have a grass based system with indoor costs and investment capital requirements plus the labour required to run.saw a new 700 cow farm development up the country in the spring and what really struck me was how efficient it was .it was basically silage pits one side which faced the cubicle house directly with a rotary down the side and a huge lagoon the other end it was basically one way traffic with milk extracted out the side.the developers were from your typical low cost jersey back ground but this place is milking 365 .it just struck me how efficient it was.the last time this type of simplicity and efficiency struck me like that was 20 years ago in nz when I visited a farm there which was had a milking parlour in the middle of a 600 acre block.there was a road from the public road to the parlour and then there was 2 farm tracks for the cows either way from the parlour.it was so simple and efficient.in our yard we are under pressure to get the collecting yard back before calving after extending the dairy washings tank and sometimes I wonder are neither here nor there. We have the hassle and expense of indoor systems and we don't have the turnover to justify the investment
You need scale for labour and labour was the big issue a year or two ago before regs and dero took centre stage.
365 milking is fine when labour and family are readily available but for the majority that are just not at that scale spring still is the only system that affords you some bit of time off even if it is minimal.
Im saying that from a farm that has always milked 365, have heard from our local vet about all the customers they have exiting milk this year most have kids but none want to milk all working away from farm and don’t want to be tied down. One farmers son said he’d take over if they got someone to milk 3 days a week he only wanted to work 4 days on the farm, that herd was sold out two weeks ago.
Because dairy farming is now very much tied to regulation and the Dutch are proably regulated bit higher than us but we will be soon enough …..hence why I think we have a lot to learn from them and it’s more relevant to us than you’d think
growing grass is relatively easy …farming and making money to comply with all our regs is a bit trickier ….some younger farmers have unrealistic exoectstions now when it comes to milking cows if your well set up and of your at a scale where there is labour etc you may as well milk 365
I don’t agree with the nz model on a whole like I’d assume the majority of Irish farmers would but the way they produce milk regulations aside is far more relevant to any young person going abroad with placement from ag college then to a mainland European high input high cost system. Even if the kiwis do supplement with maize etc it might teach young people the best way to supplement in a spring based system to make them more sustainable and profitable.
The amount of farms milking all year round is shrinking constantly and young people won’t have any interest in going milking 365 with what’s available to them now off farm with far less hassle so I don’t see where the hunger to learn of the Dutch milk production system would come from.
All countries in europe have higher environmental standards we are no exception.
The dutch dairy farmers are under more pressure than we are with new regulations and that has nothing to do with grass based systems
Even in new zealand regulations are having a big effect. I worked in nz 15 years ago and it was a free for all. I have keep in touch with the farmer i worked for and things are changing. It is near impossible to convert farms to dairy anymore and fonterra expect milk production to decline in the next decade because of the environmental rules.
Not been smart you wouldn’t have to go there to see the efficiencies of a grass model ….we get enough of it through various outlets here as is ….I believe it’s a beautiful country and wouldn’t be against travelling there but I’d have little interest in seen too many farms tbh ….like to see how there cooperative model works and have good look at frontera
Different set of rules tho ….we can’t get away here with what they do ……in a grass based model …..you could make a fair arguement that we are where we are now because our advisory models pushed a kiwi based model near blindly above all others
What the media here reports about nz and what is actually going on out there re grass based is totally different
they feed a lot of meal and most farmers grow maize
I don’t think anyone goes out to nz to learn about regulations, the people going go there to see their efficiencies in a grass based system and where they can be implemented at home within our regulations.
Maybe we can learn from the dutch in creative farming with regards regulation going forward....
How we farm and how we comply with the raft of regs is a bit different to the kiwi model ….imagine if we made silage pits in a field and had to deal with co co and dept inspectors to explain it ……Holland is more relevant to us in how we farm due to same compliance laws which are far higher than New Zealand
Chap I knew did the green cert course after doing a degree first. He was lumped in with a load of lads just finished secondary school. He said the lectures were gas, the tutors would regularly have to intervene to split up wrestling match’s in the back of the classroom
Remember doing the green cert. There was a fella maybe around 35-40. Married with kids. You could tell he knew his stuff about the practical things of farming. But when we went into the class room I'd say he would rather eat the keyboard than use it. Some people just aren't programmed that way. Id imagine the lecturer's had the right up his project for him in the end. Which I'd have no problem with because he was there everyday and knew his stuff.
Ireland is still a grass based dairy model, nz is still a lot more relevant to the majority as opposed to a high input predominantly indoor type setups Holland have with their token grazings to get their bonuses. Look at debt per cow in Holland compared to here that’s a road no young person should be encouraged down.
We’re light years ahead of the kiwis now ….that sort of. Carry on over winter will do nothing for water quality …..no point in us comparing to them now as playing field ain’t level …..like they can still stack there winter silage in a field with no concrete or no collection tanks ….any young farmer would be better served doing a stint in Holland now as more relevant to how we operate here as regards compliance etc
