Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

If starting now deffo no. Was different when I started 50 years ago. Not as many alternatives available.

’I am in blood stepped in so far…that returning is as tedious as going over’. WS.

No regrets for being a farmer but I couldn’t be without livestock now…’a cow, a sow, and an acre under plough’.
Farms are more cyclical and sustainable when mixed. Monocrop or specialised farms need a constant supply of imports..whether that’s feed or fert etc, and have a huge exposure to weather, markets etc. Mixed farms massively spread those risks.

it is a good system tbf but huge work and expense when you cost your time and everything else

Not sure about that - it was the standard approach up till the late 70's b4 the headage madness threw commonsense out the farmgate

nitrates and derogation and all that crap at play now as well …there was a time when I ran a beef enterprise as well …the profit was minimal but great way of holding money together ….now I’ve just the cows …beef is gone and to comply with regs and hold cow nos replacements are contract reared ….it’s more profitable …and simpler but still brings its complications especially in back end with all the putblicks and nothing to graze them

There was a lot of help around then, a stay at home wife, agrandparents as well to mind the hens and sows and bonamhs, they were only milking 20 cows and rearing the calfs. Growing a garden for the house.

Those days are long gone my friend

test

I’m not entirely sure that headage was the cause of farm spécialisation. The same regs were in play here and most farms are mixed, bar cereals. Cereal farmers will however grow a massive array of crops and have ‘straw for muck’ arrangements with livestock farms.
I’ve yet to go on a farm here that doesn’t have a garden, except yours truly of course. Most will have an orchard, and hedgerows littered with cherry, peach etc trees. People give me €25/day to harvest the hedgerows..and us Irish will just drive over them!
Maybe it’s a culture thing.

The thing is the main difference between France and Ireland is the land price. Government policy in France has kept land prices down so lads don't have to squeeze every last inch of production from the acre.

I’m not so sure..that old canard is trotted out to explain need for derogation/special treatment etc etc.
It’s beyond my comprehension as to why an inflated land price is the cause of monoculture farms, spécialisation, and the need for constant gov grants/bailouts, inc derogation on nitrates etc.

What % of posters here have actually bought land?

They don't get the same horn for expansion that Irish lads do for definite. It's the biggest cause of high land prices here. Too many here are happy to subsidize land purchases from off farm income, existing acres or excess mullicking/hardship.

It did probably did also help that they had a proper economy to provide non farming opportunities after the war.

Generalisation that doesn't ring through.

Irish farms would be among the smallest in the EU.

Even looking at French and Dutch farming news there's opportunities posted for expansion in Hungary, Romania, even Ukraine. They are not doing so if there's not takers.

the grants are there as a mechanism for cheap food and to improved conditions to meet cheap food policy, there are only so many ways you can skin a cat…..if we were making good money there would be no such thing as farming grants or cap in eu

brought my granfather to doctor last week, over 20 on staff, not one person in doctors practice work more than a three day working week, that includes doctors, the doctor gets a GRANT to pay for each of their nurses and secretaries and bills out nurse at 50/hr, all doctors in practice get a GMS list of people on social/over 65/under 5 in area and get a grant/yearly payment of aprox 100k to cover seeing/or not these patients during the year, private patients pay on top…..

now look at the grants/funding/subsistence available to doctors and look at the "grants/eu subsistence funding" available to us farmers for keeping people away from the doctor by providing the plane of nutrition, there is a gulf between us, i think we missed a trick somewhere on TMAS id have picked the paid employee over the french bulk tank or german milk machine any day if given the choice:)

inflated land prices have occurred due to tax free rental and if you have a ball of money made from another industry sitting in the bank its has been a low risk investment, with enviro regs renting is becoming less feasible, you might see a correction yet to land and rental prices as farms across the board are under serious financial pressure….high rents and high debt and bad weather is a bad combination