I’m looking across at a field of maize we have here every day, it’s absolutely lifted out of it in the last few days. Field is 100% green now and you can’t see between the rows. Bit of heat coming towards next weekend will crown it
heat will crown it for sure but in comparison to last few years maize as of today looks way behind and lot of lads saying leaves all purple ….ill be trying to buy 5/6 acres to put on top of wheat
Infairness j a lot of places got badly done withe the weather this year most people round here didn't get slurry on a lot of the first cut silage then also couldn't get fertiliser on it in time im my living memory its been the worst 9 continuous months of weather ever I've never seen a spring like it
My Contractor is fairly buckling under the pressure around here at first cuts now. I was standing beside him today when he told one guy on the phone to go away and get someone else because he just couldn't make it on time. Lads are driven mad from it. Alot still to do around the place and more rain coming.
Grass and turf drive most sane men completely gaga round here savage pressure round here too
Serious amount of grass being lifted today anyway. Very hard to get anyone to lift grass at short notice id say. Contractors under fair pressure in fairness
It's more short windows of opportunity are the problem more than short notice tbh. Trying to hold on to men then that had holidays from work and stuff.
A field in an outside place, never fed. Strong stuff now boy, a bale every 20 foot.
My teachers in dararra would be embarrassed of me. Better than a ball of snow if you were short next winter. Straw around here is nearly 40 euro a round bale
When we were washing down the parlour this morning after milking my father mentioned to me he found a docket at home last night. A milk statement from October 1992. He got paid £1.18p for his milk that month. Granted he was in the winter milk scheme, still some money though.
26.2p per litre which is 32.25 cent and he said silage was £35/acre to cut then and land was around £1,000-1,500/acre to buy. Doesn’t make much sense land is making up to €25,000 fairly freely now and it’s not like it’s the profits of beef or tillage that’s buying it
And probably cost less than 10 cent to produce.the only problem was there wasn't alot of litres coming out of yards
In the early 90’s there would have been 120 cows being milked here, doing very good milk. One year alone in the early 90’s there was a superlevy penalty of £40,000 put on the farm here. At the time there was 2,000 square foot 2 storey houses builders finish for sale in Listowel for the exact same money.
Realistically the people who came up with the quota system should have all been executed for treason. Zero point on fining European farmers for production and letting America and NZ take over. They were allowed to scale up in time. Most family farmers in Ireland are going to be lights out after this generation as they won’t be at a scale to even live off it. I’ve a wife and 2 children. No mortgages. I reckon it’s costing us €90,000/year just to live, that’s including childcare etc…
Christ, 120 cows in the early 90s would have been a serious operation.
Who puts in your silage?
Can you give a break down for that €90k.
crazy statement
How so
have kinisla any financial reserves now such as kerry shares of any description or shares in ornua?
jusjust trying to get a sense of how they are going.
Weekly shop here for a family of 5 is 280 a week, childcare another 200 and insurance plus diseal another 100, the cost of living for a family really has gone nuts altogether, thats basically the other halfs salary gone, if you added a mortgage payment of 1600 a month on to the above and maybe 700 a month for hp on a car, thats circa 60k after tax gobbled up
Young family with even a normal mortgage will have 100k in expenses to live if they have a few luxuries at all.
People massively unrated the value of a farm around expenses, it makes a huge difference. See my friends where they would have decent salaried jobs and they can hide nothing, nearly every expense is after tax. They are crippled with the cost of living
are you sure about that, nearly €2k a week expenses. To be honest I’m struggling to see how anyone could spend / afford that. The average salary is €55k and median is €45k. If anyone is spending early €2k a week there’s definitely places the can cut back and they better hope they never loose their Pharma job.
Is your positivity mask slipping, welcome to 2026 in ireland.
The worst financial mistake we ever made was getting married and doing it the "proper " way.
If herself had 6 kids and I was in hiding, imagine the free house and the weekly payments. I could still live away there only park around the back.
There was brand new houses built locally and given away. One woman had gone for a few celebrating drinks before collecting the keys of her new free house, that she fell and was carried off to hospital.
Instead the two of us work fulltime and pay tax to keep the rest going.
And fellas call me right wing
So fully agree everyone has different expectations in life but a family of five with a 350 k mortgage, both parents working full-time Figures are approx.
20k mortgage
20k motor costs two cars
15 k groceries
15k child care
7k household bills
10k holiday/ entertainment
I didn't get to 100k but not far away from it either
Childcare is €20,000 & all the insurance premiums (not the farm since I’m just an employee) come to €14,000. That only leaves €1,000/week give or take for everything else. When I was in Pallaskenry in 2015, we were told an average family needed €1,000/week net just to live.
And no — Kinisla are on their own now in that regard 😂😂
Everyone has different expectations 😂 I’m glad I don’t have expectations of spending €20k on cars and €10k on holidays / entertainment, and definitely not if I had a €350k mortgage. There’s plenty of people driving 10 or 15 year old cars. Some of those figures above don’t apply to a lot of people because it simply wouldn’t be possible.
I’m driving the newest car I’ve ever driven now. It’s a 2014 Skoda.
The 508 I had before that was 2012 and I only managed to keep it a year before it gave up.
Since January 2025, it’s cost me personally €1,000/month to stay on the road and that’s a conservative figure 😂
My point being, cars can be like tractors. Often the cheapest turns out to be the dearest. Got the Skoda at Xmas and had spent €2,000 on it by March 17th
do you do a lot of driving or is it a heap of scrap that’s giving a lot of trouble ? The €14k a year for insurance, does that cover rental properties too? The figures put out here are blowing my mind.
You can't compare the milk price from then to now. It was an artificial market kept high by the eu funding export subsidies and intervention. Real demand wasn't the driver of price.
If you are spending €70-80 a week on fuel. You won't run much of a car for under 10k/ year when you look at full costs.
People in their 20s and 30s are struggling to buy homes and start families exactly because the figures I have laid out are the reality of living in Ireland. No point deluding yourself either.
Apparently over the course of the year we averaged 3 pence per litre ahead of the USA dairy farmers
some doom and gloom and misery from lots here lately …..and reality from others ..on cost of living these days …it’s out of control .farming is tough going at times but why constantly play the poor mouth and live without a few luxuries
