Spuds price rise

girl in the striped socks wrote: »

I'd like to get a look at their books.
We can all live in big houses & drive new cars if we want. It's paying for it is the problem. Don't always believe what you see.
From my experience it's the farmer driving a bet down pajero that is financially better off than the big man driving a new car every year.

And I know plenty of guys like that too, one imfamous guy in my area who actually is exceedingly rich, owns lots of land and has sold many, many sites in the Celtic Tiger days and is known for favouring a length of baling twine in place of a belt!

blacklilly wrote: »

Most farmers have inherited their job, how many people do you know of that have chosen to become farmers.

If they're not happy farming, sell the farm and do something they want to do.

up for anything wrote: »

blacklilly wrote: »

Most farmers have inherited their job, how many people do you know of that have chosen to become farmers.

If they're not happy farming, sell the farm and do something they want to do.

I'll take a wild guess here and I apologise in advance if I'm wrong. You're not from a farming family...
Many farmers have huge pride in their farms want to see it passed down to the next generation, their fathers and forefathers may have farmed on the land they now have. I already said my dad loves his farm, would not sell it. I just think some people do not fully appreciate the work and sacrifices many farmers make in order to run an efficient farm. Take for example two years ago with the snow, all our water pipes were completely frozen, 300 cattle to water, it was horrendous, extra food needed (of which there was s huge shortage and issues with transportation) and bedding to ensure the animals were comfortable, sick animals, vet bills, checking the cattle during the night , breaking ice out of water tanks. This is just one example. When the weather is good its a joy .to be a farmer but bad summer's, harsh winters can be extremely damaging financially, emotionally and physically

pconn062 wrote: »

I appreciate it might be different for smaller farms though, but they a few and far between in my area.

pconn062 wrote: »

But I appreciate this could be confined to my own area which gets more favourable weather conditions and is not applicable to the entire country.

Louth?

Louth and North Dublin: A fair proportion of large farms, with the soil and weather fairly conducive to tillage, and the size and economies of scale and proximity to a large market (Dublin) to make relatively high profits. This proximity also allowed many of them to profit from selling sites for the housing boom during the Celtic Tiger.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the area is an aberration in Irish farming, but it certainly doesn't reflect the norm.

And indeed there are other pockets of large farmers with good land in other parts of the country with different specialisms who also make good money.

And there's the middle group, reasonable land, reasonably sized farms, reasonable income, but they'll never be rich in the cash sense.

And the third group, the small farmers, or those with decent enough sized farms but poor enough soil, or a portion of the farm is hill or marsh or bog or whatever. If they're reliant entirely on the farm income they're scraping by at best, and often not even that. In most cases, they're not entirely reliant on the farm income any more, because they can't afford to be: they're part-time farmers, with a full-time or part-time job during the day and they farm part-time, i.e. in the early mornings, the evenings and the weekends. Or they farm full-time and their partner has a job. Or given the current economic mess, they *had* a job, they don't any more, and they're in trouble.

I don't have stats for each group, and tbh I cba going mining for them among Teagasc and DAF reports, but I would estimate that that first group is <10% of Irish farmers (though they certainly represent / own a fair bit more than 10% of Irish farm *land*).

And there are also a small group of outliers, many of them now ex-farmers, who were lucky enough to have land on the edge of cities / large towns during the housing boom and in a position to realise their assets / sell up completely for very large sums indeed. But it's a very small group who made the huge profits. Hopefully, they invested it wisely. Despite all the media attention they got from time to time, they no more represent the average farmer than Fitzpatrick or Quinn or Drumm represent the average private sector worker.

I would agree though that farmers are doing better overall than they were 5 / 10 years ago, relatively speaking. This is partly due to an upsurge in agriculture and agricultural prices (which is probably cyclical and transient, it usually is) but mostly ... and here's the kick in the tail ... because 5 / 10 years ago most people in the PAYE sector were doing much better than they are now (because that's who that "relatively" is usually measured against). It doesn't really represent that big a jump in the average income of the small to medium farmer; it represents a serious fall in the average income of the rest of us!

Going back to the OP and the spuds: my father sows potatoes every year for family consumption (and the odd half bag will get thrown in the boot of the car if he's going to visit friends / family who don't live in the country). He normally has great potatoes, but he's been complaining all summer that every plant he digs up has one or two half-reasonable potatoes and a scattering of marbles. Very bad crop. Same for carrots and parsnips etc. Miserable summer, miserable crop.

up for anything wrote: »

If they're not happy farming, sell the farm and do something they want to do.

And what would you advise a 50-60 year old farmer who has farmed all his life to turn his hand to, given our current economic climate? Which of the many jobs which are in such abundant supply at the moment would you suggest he apply for?

its a golden wonder there are any spuds left with the amount we eat of them

randylonghorn wrote: »

Louth?

Louth and North Dublin: A fair proportion of large farms, with the soil and weather fairly conducive to tillage, and the size and economies of scale and proximity to a large market (Dublin) to make relatively high profits.

The farms I have been talking about are locted in these areas, some of the best land around, no matter how good your land is, if you have an extremly wet summer, potatoes will not grow, they will rot, yet the farmers still have to harvest them, salvage what they can and pepare the soil for the next planting season. So the work load is still huge for basically no return.

girl in the striped socks wrote: »

Grow your own. They taste way better.
Or if you can't do that find a farmer that sells them & buy direct off him.

How does the potato go bad if the farmer gives it to a distributor who sells onto shops?

Quorum wrote: »

ScumLord wrote: »

Not what I was getting at. How do potatoes taste better if I buy them off the farmer direct rather than getting them in a shop, who buys them off a distributor who buys them direct from the same farmer?

If you can get them off a farmer that has just whipped them out of the ground you'll get much better quality potatoes.

From the supermarket, you're getting a crop that has been put into tonne boxes in the field, then possibly put into a bulk trailer, then dumped onto a packing line, put through weighing and bagging machines, onto palletisers, crammed onto a lorry trailer, sent to a distribution centre, then to the shop to sit on the shop floor or in storage for a few days before you get your hands on it.

It's all down to peak potatoes, just like peak oil.:(