Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

Frazz's comment above about people being conditioned to accept what they are told is very telling, and it's a change of mindset that is required, urgently, if we are to do justice to our own farms and to our own hard work.

The evolution - sometimes perhaps unwilling, sometimes unwise - from farm to dairy business in a free market is a reality whether we like it or not, and to make a success of these farms as businesses we need - I think - to be ready to be as constructively critical of the chain we supply outside the farm-gate as we are on ourselves inside the yard. It may well that in a global market price is beyond our direct control, but that doesn't mean it should be beyond our concern - particularly as we seem to have so many well paid (by us!) layers between the us and the final consumer.

I never really understood why farmers accepted traceability in the food chain (and this goes for beef as much as milk) as a one way ticket - we pay for it, suffer the labour of it, and the penalties when something goes wrong and yet the same database which tells Tesco the middle name of the poor farmer who tagged the beast can't tell the farmer where his product is ending up, and in general terms at what price. We need to learn to connect with our customers, and the present state of affairs is simply not good enough.

Of course we shouldn't dwell on price to the detriment of our farms - far from it - but we should use this difficult state of affairs, with a low milk price, to make damned sure that the supply chain which we fund is fit for purpose - which is taking the fantastic milk we produce to the best possible market on the day, with the greatest margin payable directly back to the farm.

For the most part we got the land we need from a previous generation - perhaps our own contribution should be to think harder about the supply chain we want to pass on, along with the land & the cows, to the next.

we have 5 levies on ours
1.Bord Bainne levy (thats in statute since 73)
2.dairy research levy (wouldnt mid that if it went for research)
3.dairy council levy (pays for the adds wit the rugby lads)
4.government services (if were paying for gov services whats our taxes going towards and we pay a levy on ever liter we produce so surely this is covered in 1)
5.disease eradication (who is this being paid to dept of ag/ahi ireland?)

Are they compulsory?

eye opener to look at the milk league table and to see Glanbia holding the table up.

kevthegaff wrote: »

Are arrabawn ahead of dairy gold, must be hurting for the lads that moved, saying that they could be right in the long run

Dsirygold slightly ahead of us on a+b_c basis Kev .boys that left for there took along term view on it

The spread between fat & protein is higher about now than it has been for a long time.

Regardless of base milk price, one would expect that spread to reduce one way or another. Fat (butter) can become cheaper or Protein can become more expensive - relative to one another.

I would have thought that, no matter what the base price does, the product mix is about to be tested which might well see some positions change in the milk price table over the next 12 months.

kowtow wrote: »

Ah Jeez now they'll all be at it...

"A German dairy farm has €1.8m turnover but just 75 cows"


http://www.farmersjournal.ie/a-german-dairy-farm-has-1-8m-turnover-but-just-75-cows-194393/

Turnover = vanity
Profit = sanity
Cash flow = reality

mahoney_j wrote: »

Turnover = vanity
Profit = sanity
Cash flow = reality

That is a handy bit of doggerel but I dare say that €1.75M is something of a comfort when you only have to feed & house 75 cows.

He's getting an equivalent of 80c + for milk, up to 10 x the gross margin of the best Irish grassland farmers.

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

You should do what Kerry do, turn the page upside down and proclaim you're leading the table 'on a like-for-like basis';)

Didn't they only say they were going to pay a leading milk price?

I'm not sure that they were specific about which direction it would be leading in...

As I think Churchill said when accused over indentured labour...

"It cannot, in the opinion of Her Majesties government, be classified as slavery in the extreme sense of that word, without some risk of terminalogical inexactitude"

Panch18 wrote: »

He had 10 full time staff, 20 part time staff and how much invested in plant and equipment. He also has a catchment population of 12m.

Very true, although my guess would be that those staff are there because of demand for his product... if he wasn't selling it, he wouldn't need them.

We're not, of course, comparing apples with apples and as you say catchment is vital - but we do have a big metropolitan market on our doorstep, and we bat above our weight internationally.

Believe me as somebody who is doing something vaguely similar, the amount of negativity & doom saying I hear on a daily basis in this country is really surprising - sometimes from people quite willing to put really significant amounts of borrowed capital at risk for substantially lower returns - from a market which is outside their direct control.

It's not a solution for everyone - it's not even a solution for many, perhaps - but it serves to show that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

kevthegaff wrote:

Is there much initial investment in making cheese? I haven't a clue!! I don't know anyone making some

Like most things it depends on ingenuity and approach. Could spend €500k in a heartbeat or spend €25k and the results might be all the better for it. Complying with hygiene requirements is a big issue but doesn't have to be a killer if approached intelligently.