organic farming

Great price there. It sure will be interesting to compare with the ones going to the factory. Is that €8.15 a kg for R grades or flat?

The market for finished organic beef seems to be very limited. I got on better last year selling bull weanlings than bullocks in the mart. I've no idea who bought either of them, most likely the bulls went to a feedlot.

I wonder is there scope to sell organic beef that is 100% grass fed? Bordbia is in scutter now and it won't be long before joe public starts to ask some more questions about just what exactly the meat on supermarket shelves was fed on besides grass.

I think Clive Bright up in Sligo is doing it successfully all year round. A group of us (conventional suckler beef discussion group) visited Dovea recently. The oldest member of the group is 82 or 83, there wouldn't be anyone under 40 in the group and I'd say the average age is roughly late 50s.

90% of the time was spent going through the catalogue on the charolais, blue and limo bulls available. 10% of the time was spent looking at 'easy' calving bulls for heifers. Feckit I don't want to be out using a calving jack at any time of day never mind at 3 o'clock in the morning. Those days are gone for me anyway and probably every other member in our DG too.

The point I'm trying to make is there's loads of stats available on carcase weight, calving difficulty (one bull we looked at is 21%) conformation etc. But there's nothing on meat eating quality (MEQ), or feed conversion at grass. I think the ai companies and icbf are missing a trick here, I could be wrong.

Maybe all we should be looking at is how nice a steak looks on the shelf or how cheap and lean the mince is in the local Aldi. But I know the difference between a grain fed steak and a grass fed steak when I'm eating it. It's like the difference between a free range chicken and the sh1te that passes for chicken these days.

Yes I agree it's not going to work for extreme continental types of cattle, but there's potential for it to work on limos, perhaps saler and aubrac breeds.